Letters From The Editter

Best nursery rhyme eva

2009-09-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Mary had a little watch
She swallowed it one day
And so she took some castor oil to pass the time away
The castor oil it did not work, the time it would not pass
So if you want to know the time, just look up Mary's uncle, he's a jeweller!

Tiny Angel Yoghurt Doll

2009-09-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

I dreamed one night last week that a tiny angel yoghurt doll was trying to guide me to sleep.

She was in our bed, white and yoghurty, and only 5 cm high.

I think Dougal thought I'd completely lost it. She comes back every night to guide me to sleep. It's good that I've worked out that that is her role, cos sometimes I have a hard time sleeping. It's a nice feeling that someone has been sent to help me sleep.

Even is she is only a 5cm tall doll!

almost 5 months old

2009-09-01T01:27:00.001-07:00

UPDATED 11.25pm 7 Sept

I've never done the "you are x months old" posts - about time I started!

Baby G, you will be 5 months old in 2 days.

And you are such a happy, cruisy, contented little baby boy.

You found your hands a little while ago, and they are an endless source of fascination for you now. And just today you discovered your tongue, and have spent hours rolling it round in your mouth and poking it in and out.

You love lying in your bouncinette when we are preparing and eating breakfast and dinner. You love being part of the family. You watch whoever is speaking and smile at us all.

You like watching Daddy and your brother getting dressed in the mornings.

Sometimes you like your bath, sometimes you hate it. But you like having had your bath, being all clean and dry and massaged and in your sleep attire.

You will tolerate tummy time for a few minutes. Actually your nanny got you to have your longest, least grizzly tummy time ever one day last week - we even think you enjoyed it!

You prefer lying on your back on the activity and playing with the rings. You have rolled from tummy to back, but only a few times, and you looked very surprised when you'd done it.

You like being in your exersaucer, it's a good height for you to watch what's going on around you. You will grab the steering wheel and you will dribble on your bunny.

You like getting your nappy changed, whoever's doing it (and I'm sure you've had 15 different people on nappy duty!) gets lots of smiles.

You start out your night sleeping in your cot, you'll do a good long stretch there - you'll go down any time from 6.30pm-10pm, and not wake till you're hungry, which will be 1.30-6am if you've gone down at 6.30pm, otherwise 6am.

After we've given you your bottle, we lie you down between us in our (superking) bed.

You'll resist sleep - you'll growl, talk, push your cheek against mine, hold my hand, dribble on my wrist, pull my hand to your mouth, put my fingers in your mouth, put your fingers up my nose... but Daddy and I will generally fall asleep and you'll finally succumb...

We love you our darling little boy!

Toxic Booju

2009-08-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

I hope I'm allowed to put this photo up - it's of me breastfeeding Baby G when he's 6 weeks old :)

I'm now on a drug to dry up my milk. I can't be feeding my baby my toxic booju! (boob juice). Full of toxic chemotherapy drugs. I don't know if there'll be a safe point in my 3-week breaks between chemotherapy sessions where I will be able to breastfeed.

The medical oncologies told me not to even use the breastpump - I can't be getting toxic milk in the pump! And to be careful to not let any of my milk even get on my skin!

Dacarbazine

2009-08-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Notes from my last medical oncology appointment:

Histology showed this wasmelanoma. Role of chemotherapy in melanoma is a veryunusual one.

A number of drugs have beentried, none specactular.

There are two families of drugs: Dacarbazine is the most potent, then of the Taxines, Paclitaxel is the most effective.

They have chosen Dacarbazine for my treatment because the Paclitaxel doesn't go into the brain very well because the brain protects itself from chemotherapy drugs. Might be a bit leaky.

We give it on its own and we give it once every three weeks. Then I have three weeks' recovery.

We give it for nine weeks - 2 doses for it to work, ideally 3.

It takes half an hour to an hour to administer through an IV drip in the hand. That's the correct dose. How it works is it gets into the DNA and stops the cells dividing. If it's working and it is tolerable, we will plan to continue it as long as it's working. Can continue for two years, it's not a drug the body gets tired of.

First side effect is nausea on the day that it's given, 6-8 hours after it's taken. They said 6pm that night I might suddenly vomit and need district nurse to come and give me an injection (but this didn't happen, yay!)

Infection: it's the good cells that this drug is going to clamour. Watch out for a cold, sore throat, temperature - these are signs that I need to call the hospital.

I'm at more risk from bugs in my own system than from anyone else's bugs, but don't let anyone else with bugs visit.

I will need to do a blood test each Monday before each Tuesday chemotherapy session.

My first chemotherapy session

2009-08-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

I had my first chemo session yesterday, which was fine, just loooong! We were supposed to meet with the oncologist at 9.30am yesterday, but didn't see her till 10.30am. The chemo was supposed to start after that and take 20 minutes. Well, all up we were there from 9.30am till 5pm!

They were really busy, I was just lying on a bed in the cancer day ward, reading or snoozing. George was there with me all day - he had thought he was going to get to work, but no.

They put a couple of bags of saline through my IV drip first to hydrate me, then the chemo drug - dacarbazine. It was fine, just liquid going through my vein in my hand.

They gave me a maxolon tablet before i left hospital to combat any nausea but said if I had nausea or vomiting to ring the district nurse who would come to give me an injection. But I was fine, so that's all good!

Just tired, but Baby G and therefore I did an 11 hour sleep.

My sister and 12 year old nephew have been up from Nelson since Monday, my nephew flew home at lunchtime and my sister flies home Friday 7pm. My sister from Tauranga and cousin from Auckland are flying down Friday to Sunday, yay!

Wellington on a Plate

2009-08-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

I exhort you to go to a wellingtononaplate.org event!

We did Wellington on a Plate for lunch and are doing it again for dinner!

George and I went to Soi at Evans Bay Parade last night and it was O for Oarsome!

We walked with the buggy to Cafe Polo today - Larder was closed, I'm quite pleased, cos Polo was awesome!

For $25 each my sister and i got a plate of cauliflower, porcini and olive oil soup, followed by a choice of lamb on mash (me) or gnocchi with blue cheese and mushroom (my sister), then espresso creme brulee with a hazelnut biscotti. And I had a soy latte. YUM!

On the way home we went to Weta cave. It was a good walk for me - and hot! And a lovely lunch!

SOI Menu $29 each:

main: choice of crispy Asian pork: 5 spice free range pork belly complimented with Jasmine rice and Asian greens, fried shallots and chilli hoisin plum sauce

OR

forest mushroom risotto: trio of forest mushroom risotto with baby spinach, gremolata crumbs and shaved NZ parmesan.

OR panfried terakihi on truffle mash with shaved gremolata and capers.

George had the pork and I had the fish and both were utterly delicious.

Dessert: mini pavlova served with caramelised fruits, berry compote and freshly whipped cream.

They had no mini pavlova left, but we both had an apple and ginger crumble with a shot glass of pouring cream, also delicious.

And I had a Moscow Mule.

Gettin' wiggy wit' it

2009-08-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

Wig photos:

Shelley and I got our hair shaved off yesterday!

We had a fun day. We started with getting our makeup done at the MAC counter at Kirks, then went to The Powder Room in Newtown to get our heads shaved. They made us hot chocolates and a friend brought chocolate muffins. A couple of other friends turned up for support too. We told them they had to have their heads shaved too but they piked! lol!

We had photographer Adrian Heke there to document the shave, he donated his time - on his birthday! He said we look beautiful in the photos - we felt beautiful!

Shelley and I had lunch at Kiallis in Newtown then she brought me and Hawea home in time for Leanne to take us out to my wigmaker in Petone for him to make a template of my head so my new copper wig will fit properly.

I bought the blonde wig while there - I get a $2200 government grant, which is enough to cover both the copper and the blonde wig, yay!

I heard from the blood and cancer centre today that I have an appointment at 9.30 on Tuesday morning with a medical oncologist and start my chemo straight after that.

Angela D'Audney: A Wonderful Life

2009-08-19T23:51:00.001-07:00

Monday, 22 May 2001

Angela: What on earth am I doing here?
I'm alone, lying on a bed in a comfortable private room in Auckland's Ascot hospital, looking out of the window. The view from here is beautiful - tranquil and incredibly green. I can see right across Ellerslie racecourse to the trees and hills beyond.

This is the first chance I've had in days to pause for thought. To be still and let what has happened wash over me and sink in. All I can feel is an overriding sense of disbelief. What on earth am I doing here? What has happened to my life?

Just a few days ago I was a highly respected New Zealand broadcaster with the prospect of signing a dream contract with Television New Zealand. It seemed my future was secure. Now I can't even manage to write a cheque. I can barely speak, and I can't believe my voice will ever be heard on television or radio again.

It was incredible. There was this thing inside my head that was pure white and the size of a Ping-Pong ball. "where the hell did that come from?" I asked. It was a struggle to concentrate on what he was saying because I was so flabbergasted by the sight of this thing in my head.

It was a brain tumour, of course. A big one. Without surgery I would have just seven to ten days to live. If I hadn't had those stumbles on Late Edition and Good Morning, if I'd left it a few days before seeing a doctor... it didn't bear thinking about.

At the end of a long day, I met my neurosurgeon. He gave me the bad news straight away. "This is pretty grim," he told me. That sobered me up and made me realise there was certain finality to this. Finally the tears started to flow.

But I wasn't crying because I was frightened of dying. My tears were more for what I was going to miss, the things I wasn't going to have enough time to do.

I don't have regrets, I just don't, it's not in my nature. But one of the things I miss not having had is children. I think I'd have been a good mother, as I'm a caring person. I like to look after people and I'm very giving of myself. But it wasn't to be, and I'm not going to lose myself in futile "if onlys". Regrets never did anyone any good.

Me: I don't have regrets either.

Angela: One of the good things my relationship with Rob brought me was the opportunity to travel. Many people are happy travelling alone, but I'm not one of them. I like to have someone by my side to share things with - someone to say "Wow, isn't that beautiful" to, if nothing else. So during all the years I'd spent alone I hadn't managed to go off and explore any of the places I dreamed of seeing.

Me: I'm so glad I've done so much travel! A lot of New Zealand, from Northland to Stewart Island, the West Coast, Southland, The Hauraki Gulf, Kapiti Island. Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, the Gold Coast, Noosa, Brisbane, Perth, Margaret River, Albury, Rutherglen. China, Thailand (Bangkok, Hua Hin, Ao Nang) Vietnam (Hanoi), China (just a day trip from Hong Kong). Colombia (Cali, Bogota, Cartagena). Peru (Macchu Pichu, Lima), Chile (Santiago, Cusco). Easter Island. Tahiti. Rarotonga. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark (Copenhagen), Austria, Switzerland. Greece (Patras, Athens, Kalamata). USA - Hawaii, Alaska, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan.

Angela: Cancer was never, ever something I imagined I'd get. Me with my Mediterranean diet - the one that everyone is supposed to eat, and that I just stick to naturally. All the swimming, gardening and dog walking over the years means I'm fit and strong. I certainly felt very healthy. If I hadn't fallen over my words while trying to read the autocue on Late Edition and Good Morning, I'd have had no clue at all that I was sick. So to be diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumour came as a tremendous shock to me. I can't even begin to think of it as cancer. To me cancer is something that spreads through your body. Mine never will. It's a stand-alone primary tumour, this thing in may head that shouldn't be there, but it's not going to spread to any other part of my body. I'm not going to die slowly in a hospice somewhere, and for that I'm profoundly grateful. All my doctors say the end should be far kinder to me.

Me: I never thought I'd get cancer either - I don't imagine it's the kind of thing people would think they were gonna get?

I'm not worried about dying in a hospice, everyone says the hospices are just wonderful both for the patient and for their whanau. My dealings with them have been really positive and I'm looking forward to visiting.

Angela: The craziest things go through your head when something like this happens. I couldn't think about dying. All I could think was how heartbreaking it was that I'd never be able to drive my beautiful cars again. Mad, I know, when I was facing a serious operation that I might not survive, but my cars have given me so much pleasure. I can still go out in them with other people driving me, but it's not the same.

Me: Well I don't care that I can never drive again! No more driving or parking hassles and no more parking tickets!

Angela:

My neurosurgeon made no bones about the fact my prognosis was grim, very grim. I had to make an excruciatingly important choice - quality or quantity? Did I want to live for a relatively short time with a reasonably good quality of life? Or for a longer time with less quality of life.

This may sound like a very cold way of doing things, but it wasn't. We are all two people in situations like this. It was happening to me, but I was also this detached observer, so I was able to evaluate what it would mean to me, although it all still seemed strangely unreal.

I decided that, apart from simply loving life, I didn't have any compelling reasons to live. I don't have children I want to see grow up, and I don't have anyone who is dependent on me. So I reached a very comfortable state of acceptance. I decided that, on balance, it woud be better for me to opt for the less radical surgery. This would mean that I might not live so long, but that hopefully I'd live better in the time I did have.

Me: Well I have compelling reasons to live. I didn't work so hard to get my boys into my life to not be here with them! I want to spend time with them, I want to see Baby G grow up! And I want him to have me here!

Angela:

The moment it all really hit home is the one I've described already, when I was lying on my bed alone in the Ascot hospital staring down at the tranquil, green view below. I'd dealt with all the practical stuff by then: paid the bills, organised Mum, signed off on the press release. Now it was me alone, struggling to come to terms with what I'd been told was my future - six to nine short months. I was only 56, not so old.

Me: She finished the book at 57 and died at 57. She didn't have as long as she had hoped she might.

Angela: I'd always looked after myself so well. Every March I have a mammogram and a smear test, plus I get checked over for melanoma. Every three years I have a bone- density test. I've never taken risks where my health is concerned.

Me: Ha! Me neither. Except I never got checked over for melanoma, dagnabit. I do remember asking my Dr if I should get my moles mapped - she looked at a couple of them and said they didn't seem to be a worry!

Angela:

The worst thing is that [this bloody legal stuff with Rob] has taken up so much of my precious time. I've had all this legal stuff to do every single day when I should have doing pleasurable things - just having my treatment, having a sleep, having friends visit me. That's what my life should have been like, and instead there has been all this wading through documents and bank statements, and long sessions with my lawyer.

Me: she was very gracious about that situation. Thank God I've got nothing like that to deal with!

Angela: I'm trying to keep my sense of humour about the whole business, because it's better to laugh than cry. When things are serious then I have a giggle.

I don't like to dwell on the bad times. It's in my nature always to try to bounce back. But by now I was feeling so cheated. With the surgery and radiotherapy behind me, I had naively thought I was going to be able to get on with enjoying the time I had left. I hadn't realised I wouldn't be allowed to travel. I'd gone through so much, and it seemed as if I was in a worse state than ever.

The toughest times for me are always in the middle of the night. That's when I'm most likely to break down and feel as if I can't go on any longer. One of the cruellest things, I've realised as I've been lying there in my bed wide awake, is that I'm never going to know love again. It's true, it has to be. Even if I did meet somebody now, I'd run a mile because I can't let love happen.

If I had a great love in my life, I'd have to worry about how he was coping with my illness, how he was feeling about the prospect of losing me. Being alone is so much easier from that point of view. But, yes, I will miss it - loving and making love. It's so important to me. It always has been.

I'm never afraid to let the tears flow. I cry a lot. But I don't usually break down, as I have on those nights when I've started thinking about what I'm going to miss, what I'm losing out on.

Me: In the middle of the night I'm in bed with George. Maybe if I was alone I'd be thinking more, writing in my diary, crying. But I'm not.

Angela: It's so wonderful to be surrounded by friends. And so sad to know I'll have to say goodbye to them so much sooner than I want to. Sad for them too. Many have known me for a long, long time, and they're struggling to come to terms with the fact that I have this illness almost as much as I am. People keep telling me I'm brave, and that makes me freel like such a fraud. I'm not brave at all, and I'm not putting on a brave front. This is just me. I'm being the way normally am and I don't think I could ever be any different.

Me: I feel the same about bravery. I'm just being myself and can't be any different.

Angela:

I've simply accepted what's going to happen to me. I love being alive, love my life, but I don't have any fear of dying. I never have. My only fear was the method - I wouldn't want to die in a burning car, for instance. And I've been lucky, because this is not the kind of cancer that will spread, that will eat me up.

Me: I've accepted it too. It's just what's happening for me. This is just the way that it is.

Angela: The surgeon said that what will happen eventually is that my symptoms will come back. Then I'll get more and more tired and one day I'll just go to sleep and I won't wake up, which is a very nice way to go. I'm blessed, becasue it could have been horrible. People can die horribly. But there won't be anything like that - no pain, no discomfort.

Me: she just slipped into a coma at home one night.

The other thing that helps me accept my death is that I don't have any regrets about my life. When I die there won't be anything that people can point to say "She always wished she hadn' t done that.' Not even Rob. I loved him and I wanted to look after him. You never know what's going to happen when you start out in a relationship and you have to throw yourself into it 100 percent, or else what's the point in bothering? So I can't regret the years I spent with him.

What's the point in regret anyway? The things that happen to you are what help shape you. They make you what you are. You have to learn from them, then ditch them and just carry on. So there are no "if onlys" for me.

Right now I'm living each day as it comes. I don't know what tomorrow has in store for me. Will I have more seizures? Will I lose my speech again? No one can tell me anything for sure.

Angela:

So I just live day by day. I have to. I'm really only beginning to get used to it. I've always been such an organiser and planner, and I've had to stop that. Now I think of every moment as a gift and am thankful there are going to be more.

I've had an incredible 57 years. I've loved life, loved work, loved people, yes there have been some bad moments, but if you don't have the bad times then you can't appreciate the good ones.

It's been a wonderful life so far.

Me: Yep, you just have to live day by day. This moment is all we have.

Mine's been a wonderful life so far too. I just hope there's still a fair bit left!

My hair the day before The Big Shave :(

2009-08-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is my hair Thursday afternoon 20 August, the day before The Big Shave. Note the lovely balding part and the huge clump of matted hair on the back of my head!

The baldness tomorrow will look so much better, I reckon!

Hair today, gone on Friday

2009-08-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

I've had my hair long like this for such a long time - it will be weird not having it anymore! My friend Shelley and I are getting our hair shaved off on Friday at The Powder Room in Newtown. We're going to Kirks beforehand to get our makeup done and then The Big Shave will be photographed by the fabulous Adrian Heke.

They told me my hair would all fall out at once over 24-36 hours 3 weeks after my radiation treatment. So we thought we'd do the shave before that happened. It has already started coming out in tangles - I find it in our bed, in the bath, on the sofa, on the floor, clutched in Baby G's fists...

In the next couple of days Mum and I will go wig shopping - I'm thinking long, straight and copper with a fringe. I get a $400 government grant towards a wig. My nephew thought I might like to spend the money on shoes instead...

I have a bunch of hats and headscarves but guess I will need lots more!

Come back on Friday to see photos of The Big Shave!

We are doing it as a fundraiser for child cancer. Please check out Shelley's funrazor site:

http://www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/ShelleyRobertson/

Ooh, we're up to $505, awesome!

Tuesday morning: I'm scared to go comb my hair after washing it - so much came out just washing it - it's just a big matted clump at the back of my head now. I hope there's something left to shave on Friday!

It's Not About the Bike

2009-08-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

http://apps.facebook.com/facebookshelf/books/9286-lance-armstrong-it-s-not-about-the-bike-my-journey-back-to-life

Lance: I want to die at a hundred years old with with the American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line after my stud wife and ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire, the perfect contradiction to my once-anticipated poignant early demise.

Me: I don't know how I want to die - not in hospital...

Lance:Good, strong people get cancer and they do all the right things to beat it and they still die. That is the essential truth that you learn. People die. And after you learn it, all other matters seem irrelevant. They just seem small.

Me: True.

Lance: The truth is that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't know why I got the illness, but it did wonders for me, and I wouldn't want to walk away from it. Why would I want to change, even for a day, the most important and shaping event of my life?

Me: My cousin told me her friend who died of breast cancer that metastasised to her brain said she couldn't regret her illness, because it crystallised all her relationships and improved her life. I feel the same.

Lance: I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words You have cancer. Real fear came with an unmistakable sensation: it was as though all my blood started flowing in the wrong direction. My previous fears, fear of not being liked, fear of being laughed at, fear of losing my money suddenly seemed like small cowardices. Everything stacked up differently.

Me: I didn't feel fear. I think by the time I finally heard the word cancer I'd already thought cancer (or stroke, aneurism, brain tumours). I knew there was something serious behind the migraines and vomiting.

Lance: The physical pain of cancer didn't bother me so much, because I was used to it. In fact if I didn't suffer, I'd feel cheated. The more I thought about it, the more cancer began to seem like a race to me. Only the destination had changed.

Me: OK, I don't feel like that, lol! But then I'm not an athlete...

Lance:
What are my chances? It was a question I would repeat over and over. But it was irrelevant, wasn't it? It didn't matter, because the medical odds don't take into account the unfathomable. There is no proper way to estimate somebody's chances, and we shouldn't try, because we can never be entirely right, and it deprives people of hope. Hope that is the only antidote to fear.

Me: I want to know how long. I (like everybody) have so many friends who have lost someone to cancer. I ask them all: how long was he/she given and how long did they actually have?

Lance: I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was a mystery and in the midst of confronting that fact, and I was beginning to sense that to stare in the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. Once you have been that scared, you know more about your frailty than most people and I think that changes a man.

Me: True. It will change me as a man. ?

Lance:There was a disquieting intimacy to the idea that something uninvited was living in my head. When something climbs straight into your mind, that's way personal. I decided to get personal right back, and I began to talk to it, engaging in an inner conversation with cancer. I tried to be firm in my discussions. "You picked th wrong guy,", I told it. "When you looked around for a body to try to live in, you made a big mistake when you chose mine."

Me: Yes, having tumours in my brain is weird. I have had Me and Bobby McGee on an endless loop in my head for more than a week. Is that my brain from before or is it the tumours? I figure I can't do anything about it, it's just there. All. The Time.

Lance: To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.
Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. and it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I know now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit.
So, I believed.

Me: Another of my sayings is Belief Systems Drive Your Life. You choose what you believe in and that will affect what you think and how you act and how you live your life.

Lance:

Dr Nichols told me that there was every sign now that I was going to be among the lucky ones who cheated the disease. He said that as my health improved, I might feel that I had a larger purpose than just myself. Cancer would be an opportunity as well as a responsibility. Dr Nichols had seen all kinds of cancer patients become dedicated activists against the disease, and he hoped I would be one of them.

I hoped so too. I was beginning to see cancer as something that I was given for the good of others. I had a new sense of purpose, and it had nothing to do with my recognition and exploits on a bike. some people won't understand this, but I was longer felt that it was my role in life to be a cyclist. Maybe my role was to be a cancer survivor. My strongest connections and feelings were with people who were fighting cancer and asking the same question I was: "Am I going to die?"

Me: I'm not sure what my new sense of purpose will be - I don't even have a diagnosis yet! - but I'm pretty sure my role in life is not to be a cyclist...

Lance:

I wanted the foundation to manifest all of the issues I had dealt with in the past few months: coping with fear, the importance of alternative opinions, thorough knowledge of the disease, the patient's role in cure, and above all, the idea that cancer did not have to be a death sentence. I t could be a route to a second life, an inner life, a better life.

Me: Good on him.
So I'm to chapter 7, where he gets together with his wife. My sister told me he left her and went out with some singer, must google...

Wow, the things you learn! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong

Armstrong met Kristin Richard in June 1997. They married on May 1, 1998 and have three children: Luke, born October 1999, and twins Isabelle and Grace, born November 2001. The pregnancy was possible through sperm Armstrong banked three years earlier, prior to chemotherapy and surgery. The couple filed for divorce in September 2003. At Armstrong's request, his children flew in for the podium ceremony in 2005, where Luke helped his father hoist the trophy, while his daughters (in yellow dresses) held the stuffed lion mascot and bouquet of yellow flowers.

Armstrong began dating singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow in autumn of 2003 and revealed their relationship in January 2004. The couple announced their engagement in September 2005 and their split in February 2006. In October 2007, Armstrong and fashion designer Tory Burch ended a relationship after several months. He dated American actress Kate Hudson from May-July 2008. On July 30 2008, a representative for Hudson announced the relationship had ended amicably.

In December 2008, Armstrong announced that his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, was pregnant with his child. The couple started dating in July 2008 after meeting through Armstrong's charity work. Although it was believed that Armstrong could no longer father children, after having undergone chemotherapy for testicular cancer, this child was conceived naturally.^[41] The baby boy, Maxwell Edward "Max" Armstrong, was born on June 4, 2009 in Aspen, Colorado. Armstrong announced the birth using the micro-blogging service Twitter. Armstrong has become a popular Twitter user with over 1,600,000 followers.

To continue with his book from Chapter 7:

Lance:

In an odd way, having cancer was easier than recovery - at least in chemo I was doing something rather than waiting for it to come back.

I was despondent and still nervous about my own health, and half guilty over my good fortune in being alive.

I was still struggling with the idea that I could've lost my life, and it was difficult to know where to begin again. Decisions like whether to try to race... were beyond me. I didn't know what I wanted, or even what was possible, and I couldn't help feeling that cycling was trivial.

I was now officially a cancer survivor.

But how do you survive cancer? That's the part noone gives you any advice on What does it mean? Once you finish your tretment, the doctors say, You're cured, so go off and live. Happy trails. But there is no support system in place to help you to deal with the emotional ramifications of trying to return to the world after beeing in a battle fyour existence.
You don't just wake up one morning and say, "OKay. I'm done with cancer, and now it's time to go right back to the normal life I had." I was physically recovered, but my soul was still healing. I was entering a phase called survivorship. What shape was my life supposed to take? What now? What about my recurring nightmares? My dreams?

Me: I don't have a chemo treatment plan yet... all that yet to come...

And there's a whole lot of training and cycling stuff, Tour de France win, the IVF and his son being born.

Lance:

The truth is, if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I wold choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and father.
In those first days after crossing the finish line in Paris I was swept up in a wave of attention, and as I strugled to keep things in perspective, I asked myself why my victory had such a profound effect on people. Maybe it's because illness is universal - we've all been sick, noone is immune - and so my winning the Tour was a symbolic act, proof that you cannot only survive cancer, but thrive after it. Maybe... I am hope.

Lance:

The question that lingers is, how much I a factor in my own survival, and how much was science, and how much miracle? I don't have the answer to that question Other people look to me for the answer, I know. But if I could answer it, we would have the cure for cancer, and what's more we would fathom the true meaning of our existences. I can deliver motivation, inspiration, hope courage, and counsel, but I can't answer the unknowable. Personally, I don't ned to try. I'm content with simply being alive to enjoy the mystery.

We each cope differently with the specter of our deaths. Some people deny it. Some pray. Some numb themselves with tequila. I was tempted to do a little of each of those things. But I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage. The definition of courage is the quality of spirit that enables one to encounter danger with firmness and without fear.

Anything's possible. You can be told you have a 90 percent chance or a 50 percent chance or a 1 percent chance, but you have to believe and you have to fight. By fight I mean arm yourself with all the available information, get second opionions, third opinions, and fourth opinons. Understand what has invaded your body, and what the possible cures are. It's another fact of cancer that the more informed and and empowered patient has a better chance of long-term survival.
What if I had lost? What if I relapsed and the cancer came back? I still believe I would have gained something in the struggle, because in what time I had left I would have been a more complete, compassionate and intelligent man, and therefore more alive. The one thing the illness has convinced me of beyond all doubt - more than any experience I've had as an athlete - is that we are much better than we know. We have unrealized capacities that sometimes only emerge in a crisis.
So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this: it's meant to improve us.
I am very firm in my belief that cancer is not a form of death. I choose to redefine it: it is a part of life. One afternoon when I was in remission and sitting around waiting to find out if the cancer would come back, I made an acronym out of the word:
Courage
Attitude
Never give up
Curablity
Enlightment
Remembrance of my fellow patients.

I will always carry the lesson of cancer with me, and feel that i'm a member of the cancer community. I believe I have an obligation to make something better out of my life than before, and to help my fellow human beings who are dealing with the disease. It's a community of shared experience. Anyone who has heard the words You have cancer and thought, "Oh, my God, I'm going to die," is a member of it. If you've ever belonged, you never leave.

Since this book appeared, people have asked me what I mean when I say that given a choice between cancer and winning the Tour de France, I'd choose the cancer. What I mean is that I wouldn't have learned all I did if I hadn't had to contend with the cancer. I couldn't have won even one Tour without my fight, because of what it taught me. I truly believe that I had a deep sense of illness, and not only wasn't I ashamed of it, I valued it above everying.

It... taught me how to cope with losing. It taught me that sometimes the experience of losing things, whether health or home or an old sense of self, has its own value in the scheme of life.

I'll spend the rest of my life puzzling over my survival. Cancer no longer consumes my life, my thoughts, or my behavior, but the changes are wrought are there in me, unalterable.

Me: whew, done with the book. Now I can go back to bed!

Apparently his new book is out! A friend might drop it in this weekend.

More Lance... might have to read something else in between...

Day by day by day

2009-08-11T01:52:00.000-07:00

Every day I manage at home and my symptoms don't get worse is a good day.

I write my day up on the blackboard each day:

what time I take my dexamethasone
the time 3 hours after that that I can breastfeed again
who is coming when

I still forget sometimes: one of my antenatal group was all set to come 9ish tomorrow morning then I got a message from another friend who'd arranged to take me to Baby Rock n Rhyme at Central library tomorrow morning.

It is hard remembering everything and I guess I'm only going to get worse...

After I crashed my car, the friend who found me said after you've had a baby, you feel slightly nutty anyway. It's hard to know how much is feeling nutty, how much is the sleep deprivation and how much is the brain tumours!

Feed Me! Or, maybe stop!

2009-08-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

Lunch yesterday was bacon hock, lentil and vege soup with grilled ciabatta bread drizzled with flaxseed oil. The day before it was organic lamb slices, haloumi from the Turkish bakery and slices of beetroot from our garden, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with rock salt.

Dinner last night was lasagne from a food parcel, followed by aunty Gill's apple and rhubarb shortcake with whipped cream.

My 3.30am breastfeeding snacks were a piece of fruit cake baked by one of Mum's church friends in Napier, some roasted cashews, a banana and a mandarin. And a cranberry and lime juice that a friend brought round - I had asked for grape juice but she couldn't find it and said if it was her, she'd want a selection of yummy drinks so she brought me lots of different bottles of juice and soda - like Frank passionfruit and tart lemon, yum!

I'm thinking it won't be long till I hit the hundy... I never have before!

They weighed me in hospital before one of my procedures and I had lost 2 kilos. I couldn't help but feel pleased - such conditioning - although the Dr said I need to maintain my weight, losing is not good. I'll need the weight later when I start chemo.

So at the moment, while eating is enjoyable and I'm being brought all this delicious food, I'll make the most of it.

And now I'll go weigh myself *holds breath*...

87.3 kilos!!! Up 5kg since hospital!!!

A New Earth

2009-08-03T23:41:00.001-07:00

Oprah has been banging on about Eckhart Tolle's new book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose - has podcasts and all on her site.

I had flicked through his last book, The Power of Now, which is basically saying all we have is the present moment, be in it.

I read A New Earth in one sitting. George and I were in bed, he reading Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. We were reading inspirational bits out to each other :)

Here's some bits I wrote out from A New Earth into my diary:

Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time. The joy of Being, which is hte only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person or event - through anything that happens that joy cannot come to you - ever. it emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are.

There are threee ways in which consciousness can flow into what you do and thus through you into this world, three modalities in which you can align your life with the creative power of the universe.

The modalities of awakened doing are:
acceptance
enjoyment
and
enthusiasm

You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are doing anything at all - from the most simple task to the most complex.

Performing an action in a state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which then flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world.

If you can neither enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do - stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the one thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be the one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness, you are not are not taking responsibility for life.

Enjoy what you are already doing.

Joy does not you are already doing.

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this orld from deep within you.

"What just happened?"

2009-08-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

When did it all start?

I woke on the 22nd June with a migraine. I don't get migraines. I took nurofen, but it was quite bad.

At 4.30 that afternoon, I was trying to talk to George and couldn't get my words out straight. I tried to say "my brain isn't working" but could only say "drain" and then when I went to say "hey, I said "drain" it came out "drame".

I got scared and started to cry. George told me to not talk. He said we should ring Healthline. I tried to tell him to get the Wellchild book (cos the number is in the back) but I couldn't say wellchild or bookshelf.

I wrote down on a piece of paper "wellchild book on bookshelf". He got the book, we called. They asked me stroke type questions - could I lift my arms above my head, was my smile crooked...

I had a Listener on the kitchen table. I tried to read out a paragraph and the words came out all wrong. Astronaut came out Astromort.

It happened again at 7.15pm.

We decided to head into A&E, so packed up baby and nappy bag and went in.

They did blood tests, a chest x-ray and a heart trace and nearly did a CT scan but for some reason decided it wouldn't show them anything they didn't already know. I was admitted to a general ward in the morning (having waited 7 hours to get seen by an Emergency Doctor). George went home at 4am, baby stayed with me and slept on top of me on a triage trolley!

They dignosed "migraine and possible TIA - Transient Ischemic Attack (where a small blood clot travels to the brain and disperses. They said that seeing as I could still read and write even when I couldn't speak, that clearly only a very small part of the brain had been affected.

They said if I had any further episodes to seek medical help.

From then, I had daily migraines. I was off to Australia on 1st July with my baby for my sister's wedding on the 11th. I went to see my Dr 2 days before we flew out - I was worried I might have another episode when it was just me and the baby and that would be scary!

My Dr said to take paracetemol + ibuprofen, and I did, sometimes 3x a day. She said normally she would review me at the end of the week, but because I was going to Australia, she would just see me when I got back.

We made it to Australia without incident.

I figured the only time I was actually alone with the baby was for the flight from Wellington to Melbourne (George dropped us at Wellington airport and a friend picked us up in Melbourne and took us to the train that evening, where my sister collected us) and the train trip from Melbourne to Seymour. A matter of hours. And planes and trains are full of people, if I did collapse or anything...

I was so relieved to be in the car with my sister on our way to her house. We stayed with her till the wedding. George arrived 2 days before the wedding, and I was so pleased once he was there too. The migraines continued and I continued taking ibuprofen and paracetemol.

I started to feel a bit unsteady - felt like I was listing when walking down the hallway.

One day my sister and I joined some of her friends for lunch at a cafe about an hour's drive away. It was a bit of a windy road. I felt sick, and by the time we got to the cafe had to ask her to stop so I could get out and throw up. Her friends were watching from the cafe window! Classy.

It was a lovely lunch, I took my paracetemol and ibuprofen and had a lovely coffee and felt much better. But I knew I was just managing side effects, I knew something was wrong.

We were flying from Melbourne back to Wellington on 15 July. It didn't seem worth going to the Dr or hospital in Australia when we were so close to getting back home and I knew I would go to my Dr as soon as we got home.

On the morning of the wedding (11 July), we got our hair and makeup done. The hairdresser gave me one of her migraine pills. It helped. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to walk down the aisle straight and told one of the other bridesmaids so. She accused me of being pregnant! I knew it was so much more serious than being pregnant...

Our last day in Australia was 15 July and we were flying out at 6.40pm. We had to return our rental car to Melbourne airport at 4.30pm. George had never been to Australia before, so our last couple of days were to be The Great Ocean Road. We woke in Lorne on the morning of the 15th, and George told me he'd found a cafe for breakfast. It had roadworks right outside it and my head was pounding. He wanted me to eat, but I said I felt like throwing up and didn't want to eat. I walked down to Lorne beach and threw up three times.

We decided to just drive. I hated it, hated the movement. Just wanted to be out of the car. We stopped at Anglesea so we could see the kangaroos on the golf course. I threw up on the golf course. I threw up on the side of the road at Torquay. I threw up outside the Aboriginal cultural centre.

I was so pleased to get to Melbourne airport at 2.30pm - 2 hours before we had to return the rental car but I just wanted to be sitting down not in the car! We sat at Hungry Jack's in the terminal then went through to our gate lounge.

We got home at 1am. I rang my Dr at 8am and got in to see her the next day, 17th July.

She put me on amiltriptyline migraine medication and wrote me a referral to a neurologist through the public system. But she said it could take 8 weeks to be seen, so gave me the number of a private neurologist too. George and I talked about it that night. I said that I'd get the same tests and care whether it was public or private, the difference would be in the cost and how long it might take. He said 8 weeks wasn't that long but I said I didn't feel like I could wait 8 days, let alone 8 weeks!

I rang the private neurologist on the 17th July too. He said he couldn't see me without a referral from my GP, so I rang and asked them to send the public referral she'd done through to him. She rang me back to say she'd done that and I could book an appointment.

On Sunday 19th July I rang my friend Red to say I could take her to the airport. She was flying to the islands for her sister's wedding. She said it was fine, she'd ordered a taxi for 1pm. I said it was an excuse for me to get out of the house and to have a coffee with her at the airport, so I picked her up at 1pm. I dropped her off to check in and went to park. She rang me on my cellphone to say she'd left her passport at home! So I drove back round to departures and picked her up. We had 20 mins to get home and get back with her passport. I said we could do it fine. And we would have, if I hadn't crashed the car...

I heard the bang, and baby G started crying.

"What just happened?" I asked my friend.

"You just hit a car", she said. I'd had no idea.

The man whose car I'd hit (parked on the side of the road) heard the bang and came down from his house. He said it's the 3rd car he's had hit in the last 3 years. I said it wasn't carelessness, I'd been having migraines and had no idea I'd hit his car.

My friends asked me later why I hadn't gone straight to A&E; I'd crashed the car after all!

But I was on my own with the baby and had a crashed car to get towed away. I would've had to wheel the baby in the buggy to A&E (only 15 mins down the road, so possible) but I knew I would have to wait hours and hours to get seen and had no way of getting home - even if my car had been drivable, clearly I should'n't've been driving!

I was focused on getting home. I thought if baby and I could get home, we'd be safe and could wait for George for get home. He was working out of town that day and was due home 9pm.

I rang my insurance company and they put me onto the tow truck company. While waiting for the tow truck, the man whose car I'd hit let me wait in his house with a glass of water.

I started ringing around friends in the area. Then, while I was standing on the side of the road still, an old friend walked by with her daughter in the buggy on their way to the supermarket. "I just crashed my car, can I come to your house?" I asked?

"Of course", she said. I was just on my way to the supermarket. We joined her walking to the supermarket then back to her house, where she gave me a cup of tea and carrot cake and organised her neighbour to take me home.

I felt better once at home and heaps better once George got home.

The next morning, Monday 20 July, a friend was coming over for a visit. I decided to have a shower before she turned up, and went to put Baby G down on his activity mat, but I dropped him the last little bit and bumped his head. George asked me later if I misjudged the distance but I said no, I just couldn't hold onto him.

I asked my friend to take me to A&E, and said I'd get George to meet us there. I rang him and he said no, he'd come home and take us in.

We got there lunchtime Monday 20 July and didn't get discharged home till Thursday 30 July!

It took 7 hours to get seen again, on the Monday, but once I did it all happened fast. I had my discharge summary from the 22 June when they'd nearly done the CT scan. "Why didn't they do the CT scan then?" asked the Emergency Dr. Um - I dunno! But given that the scans they did from the 20th July (2xCT scans, MRI, chest xray, mammogram) showed tumours in my brain, liver, lungs, kidney and adrenal gland, if they had done the scan back in June they would've found the tumours then and I would'n't've been able to go to my sister's wedding in Australia. Because I would've been set on this path of investigations and treatment I'm on now.

It was such an awesome wedding and an awesome family time and I'm so glad I was there! But how freaky that I had cancer and didn't know it!

The hospital said my blood tests showed no markers of gestational disease, which means I didn't get it/have it while pregnant. So either I had it before or very quickly since having my baby. My feeling is the latter, but I don't know. I find out my biopsy results on Friday. I still don't know where my primary cancer is!

Still getting headaches, now managed by dexamethasone (steroids) to reduce the swelling and pressure in my head. I have radiation treatments Mon-Fri this week which will do the same. I also have sevradol, a morphine derivative, for pain.

I have a bit of stomach pain sometimes, but not bad.

Still unsteady and getting forgetful, which is irritating. I can't remember anything and have to write everything down.

Yesterday I started writing my day up on the blackboard (we painted our kitchen cupboard door with blackboard paint). So every day I'll write the day and date, what time my radiation appointment is, what time I took my dexamethasone (because I can't breastfeed till 3 hours after I've taken it), what time Baby G goes down to sleep, who is visiting when...

And I have to write things in my notebook all the time, when I can find it. My notebook has a note in it that says:
Things I need with me
this notebook
a pen
my black diary - where is it?
My bag - put bag by bed or by door?

A friend who came from Auckland for the weekend said "you need to put everything in your bag" and I said "I do, but then when I look for it it's not there. Or I can't find my bag!"

And it's only gonna get worse...

Edited to add:

Red rang me later to say she was worried about me and that I needed to see someone! And that she'd made her flight, thank God for that!

Of course, now I am completely barred from driving!!!

so much for privacy

2009-07-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

Me and my baby

My blog has changed, I just wanted an outlet for writing to start with. I still do. I love what it has brought me.

I'm a bit scared about being less private - I especially need to keep George Junior safe in all this.

So I guess I'm hoping I can still be me, still write without his mother or anyone who knows her finding out. Is that too much to hope for?

So, going more public. But at the moment, I still won't use our real names on here, so please don't either. That could all change but I'm still struggling with this not being so private - it's still very personal and I'm still paranoid!

Feel free to share this blog address with anyone you think might be interested.

I need to write and this story needs to inspire, right?

When my littlest sister and I visited my other sister in Bangkok we went to a temple meditation. The instruction sign said:

Inspire Deeply

Expire Slowly.

Isn't that fabulous? And a mantra for life :)

the end of the story?

2009-07-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this is the end of the story. The story will end.

I have cancer. We are awaiting my biopsy results to find out the primary source. I have secondary tumours in my liver, lungs, kidney, adrenal gland and brain. It is metastasised. When cancer has spread this much, it can't be cured, only managed.

I asked "will it kill me?"

They said "it might, but you might have years".

What if I've already had my years? It feels so fast. My blood tests showed no markers of gestational disease, so I didn't get it while pregnant. So I either have had it a while or it's come on suddenly since having my beautiful baby boy. It feels like the latter.

I didn't work so hard to get George, George junior and Baby G into my life only to not be there with them. I want to see Baby G grow up.

He is the light of my life.

I love you my baby boy.

I'm back!

2009-05-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ha! When I last posted (Oct last year, oops!) I said I'd work much harder on the blog this year. Well, this is me trying...

I'll do bullets, I think that's as hard as I can try at the moment.

I have a baby! He is utterly delicious. Currently sleeping.
He sleeps well at night, shorter naps in the day, so am not expecting this one to last long...
I never know when I'm going to get a break, or how much of a break it will be. But I've had a shower and currently having a coffee, so today is going well!
I never know what to do when I get a longer break than expected, like now. I do want blogging to be part of what I do, so here I am.
While breastfeeding during the day/evening, I watch TV series that I never watched when they were on TV - I get them out on DVD from the library. Have just finished Gilmore Girls Season 3 and am currently watching Six Feet Under Season 1.
For nighttime feeds, I have a corner in the nursery with a chair, a foot cushion, a little table, a snack tray, a glass of water, a blanket to wrap baby in, and a Listener I can hold out under a lamp I have balanced on one of the baby's drawers. Listeners are the right thickness, I got a sore wrist from trying to read a Marie Claire...
George junior is thrilled to have a little brother.
We will all love having this baby grow up in our family.
I'm still incredulous that I have a baby!

Hey, baby!

2008-10-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

I got a computer at home so that I do meet a man through internet dating and start a blog. And then get the relationship and blog established enough that before too long I would be at home with a baby and a blog. It was kind of a joke but it was kind of true. When you get to my age and a baby is finally a real possibility, you just can't wait for it to happen.

I was 38 when I met George. We had both said on our internet dating profiles that we would like children, and we talked about it but were both aware it might not happen. But really, I thought it would. So I was - maybe not blase, just confident I guess - when I got pregnant within a few months of trying. And although I didn't expect the miscarriage, I did know it was common and the fact that I had got pregnant in the first place was a good sign. I held onto a statistic I'd read: only 1% of women who have miscarriages do not go on to have a baby. And it had happened, it could happen again.

But it didn't. I charted, I temped, I counted days. There were months when I got hopeful, when I'd test. After a couple of those I didn't even tell George when I tested. People would ask if we were still trying. What a fucking stupid question. If the answer were no, it would be because it was too heartbreaking to try, and why would you want to talk to people about that? I think people just want you to say yes so they can feel everything is OK. Everything was OK. I was on the internet by then, involved in TTC and IF chats. We went to a specialist, just to see if there was a reason we weren't getting pregnant. Everything was fine. He said the fact that I'd got pregnant naturally at 39 was a very encouraging sign, and that IVF would boost our odds (2.5 times higher than trying naturally).

I didn't want to do IVF, I wanted signs and portents. I had wanted to be pregnant again before I turned 40, then before the baby's due date, then before Christmas, then before the anniversary of when I'd conceived, then I ran out of magic dates.

Because we weren't infertile, we weren't eligible for public funding. I put off starting IVF, it seemed like such a big thing. And we weren't infertile, it was just an age thing. I'd heard that at our age it can take 2 years to conceive. But I didn't want to waste those two years. Still, by the time I started on the pill as the first step in my IVF cycle, it was almost a year and a half since the miscarriage. After a month on the pill, I started injecting myself in the stomach with drugs, first one to suppress my ovaries, then one to stimulate the development of follicles. Something went wrong with that one, the pen didn't release the drug properly, making it look like I wasn't responding. The cycle was cancelled. I cried. All that build up, all that "big thing", more months wasted.

I had to start again with another month on the pill. I was over it already. No coffee, no alcohol, so much money, so much pressure, such a headfuck. I responded well, and out of 7 embryos ended up with 2 in my uterus and 2 in the freezer. BFN (=big, fat negative) for the 2 fresh ones. It wasn't long before Christmas, and we decided to wait till the new year to do a TER (thawed embryo replacement). This was much easier to go through than a fresh cycle. I ovulate on my own, so I did a natural cycle, where I had blood tests to check and then confirm my ovulation, but no drugs. In the freezer we had an 8-cell embryo, which had been cultured in the lab for 3 days, so needed to replaced 3DPO (days post ovulation). The lab rang me in the morning to say the embryo hadn't survived the thaw. It happens. Even though I knew that, to me it wasn't just a fragile embryo, it was my potential baby, with a due date and a date I would finish work and everything.

My last embryo was a blastocyst, a 5-day embryo of 70-100 cells. Embryos turn into blastocysts in the uterus, but the fertility clinic tries to culture as many on to blast as they can, as the stats show a blastocyst has a 60% chance of pregnancy. I had lost 3 embryos as the lab tried to culture them onto blast, but I held out great hope for the one blast I had. I was, however, terrified that it wouldn't thaw. Two days after my day 3 embryo hadn't thawed, I waited for the phonecall from the embryologist. I sat cross legged on the trampoline in the February sunshine, trying to relax and think positive thoughts, the phone beside me.

This one was a survivor, I got pregnant! IVF works! It paid off! My first cycle, I was so lucky! But so cautious, I was no longer the blithe pregnant woman I had been in my first pregnancy. I was pregnant for less than two weeks. The clinic said it was a mystery, I'd had 2 blood tests and my hcg levels had risen well. Normally, said my specialist, they'd have had an indication that something was wrong before I started bleeding on the morning of my third blood test. I knew it was over before I got the call that afternoon telling me my levels had plummeted.

And that was it. That was the end. We'd spent $10,000 we didn't have on something that almost worked. One of the two friends at work I'd told said "you never know, it might happen naturally". Never talk about the next pregnancy with someone who has just miscarried. Just say you're sorry, it sucks. I said if it had been going to happen naturally, it would have sometime in the two and a half years since my first pregnancy.

I didn't know what the right thing to do was. I had been to a clairvoyant years earlier who had said there was one boy out there for me, if I really wanted him. I wondered if George junior was this boy. I read The Secret, which said just ask for what you want, don't worry about the how or the when, trust it to the universe. But does that mean not boosting your chances? I had proof now that IVF did, and I had got so close that surely next time it would work? George said it just made George junior even more precious. I said it was only money stopping us from doing another round, and at the end of my life I wasn't going to be grateful for having paid off the house a little earlier, but we would never regret the money if it did mean we had a baby.

One more round, then. As I injected myself morning and night, I knew I could not go through it again. This was it. Again, 7 embryos. Again, 2 in the uterus and 2 in the freezer. Again, BFN on the fresh transfer. It was getting closer to our trip to Rarotonga. I counted the days, and worked out if I did a TER (thawed embryo replacement) before our trip, then I'd be 8 weeks pregnant when we went. Having had two first trimester miscarriages, I did not want the stress of being first trimester pregnant on our holiday. We decided to wait until we got back.

My period was due in Rarotonga, but was late. I told George when it was 2 days late, then 3, then 4. Testing wasn't an option, we were heading home that night anyway. And what do you know, on our last day, my period arrived. I felt stupid for once again having got my hopes up.

I knew my last 2 frozen embies were it. I decided to go hard out dieting and exercising to get in the best shape possible for the transfer. I lost 3 kilos in the month leading up to my next day 1, and decided to carry on till transfer date 3 days post ovulation, so another couple of weeks. I was up early on the dark winter mornings, running in my trackpants and beanie. The Secret had said to visualise your ideal body shape, and I didn't know whether to visualise myself slim and trim or round and pregnant - didn't want to get the wrong message to subconcious and end up round but not pregnant!

My period was late again. It had happened the previous month in Rarotonga, so I figured it was just my body getting old. I was probably premenopausal. 2, 3, 4 days again. I told George, and he said "I think it's coming", like he knew! On the Saturday morning, George got up to make breakfast and I told him I'd join him, but I was so tired I couldn't get out of bed. Hmm, I thought, and got my last pregnancy test out of my drawer, ready to use in the morning. In the wee hours, I had a wave of nausea and then could hardly sleep for excitement, knowing when I got up, I'd be testing. I didn't tell George. At 5.18am, I got up, grabbed my test, and headed for the bathroom. I was kneeling on the floor in my pink pyjamas when I saw the 2 pink lines come up clear and strong. I skipped back down the hallway, told George, turned on the light, showed him the test - he had no idea what I was showing him. When he woke up enough to realise, he said "how did that happen?"

Ah, how infertility and baby loss changes things. The first time I got pregnant, he said "I told you I was virile!" The second time, he said "Don't get too excited". And now "How did that happen?"

I hate that I'm a cliche - just relax, go on holiday, stop thinking it will happen, stop charting and temping, you never know, it might happen naturally, rah rah rah. But of course I'm thrilled that I'm pregnant and somehow proud that it's a natural conception.

I tried so hard to influence the how and the when, but it looks like I'll finally get what I've wanted for so long. The man, the baby, the blog. I worked hard on the man, then the baby, I'll work much harder on the blog next year, m'kay?

Hey, baby!

You need to read at least as far as K

2008-10-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

A. Attached or Single? Attached.

B. Best Friend? I have a couple of people I would count as *best* friends.

C. Cake or pie? Cake.

D. Day of choice? Saturdays - I usually start out cleaning, and there's often pottering and gardening, but more often than not there is also catching up with a friend at a cafe or for a walk. And there's still Sunday ahead of me!

E. Essential item? Coffee.

F. Favorite color? Purple.

G. Gummy bears or worms? Chocolate.

H. Hometown? I was born in one town in NZ, grew up in another, moved to Europe, came back to Wellington to university, moved to Australia, then back to Wellington and have been here long enough now that it's my hometown.

I. Favorite indulgence? Hanging out a cafe with a friend, coffee and cake and magazines or the paper to flick through.

J. January or July? January. It's the middle of summer here and we're on holiday for the first part of it.

K. Kids? One step, two angels and one in the oven :)

L. Life isn't complete without? Laughter

M. Marriage date? Nope.

N. Number of brothers and sisters? 3 sisters, yay!

O. Oranges or Apples? We have both on our bircher muesli, and other than that I don't really eat them, oops. I have an apple sitting in my intray, it's been there since last week.

P. Phobias? Mosquitoes. That whine freaks me out. Dad says they smell like kerosene.

Q. Quotes? You say bitch like it's a bad thing. Clearly you're mistaking me for someone who gives a shit (I use this one in response to someone asking me about sport).

R. Reasons to smile? Wittiness.

S. Season of choice? Autumn.

T. Tag 5 people: I'm not sure I still even have 5 readers...

U. Unknown fact about me? Can't think of anything - I am an open book. Well hello, I blog! (Occasionally).

V. Vegetable? Spinach.

W. Worst habit? Procrastination.

X. X-ray or Ultrasound? I've had 4 ultrasounds in the last 6 weeks, yay for ultrasounds!

Y. Your favorite food? Salmon.

Z. Zodiac sign? Cancer. Domesticated homebody, that's me ;)

Stolen from Nuttycow

Down South

2008-08-02T21:39:00.001-07:00

Rarotonga 008
Originally uploaded by editter_photos.

Of course, just before we were to head off to Rarotonga, she started taking/keeping George junior when he was supposed to be with us. It was probably her jealousy of our holiday, her reluctance to relinquish him for a week. I couldn't wait to be on that plane and have him out of her clutches.

That wasn't the only reason it felt great to finally be on the plane. I had clocked up a lot of hours at work in the preceding week, culminating in a missed last bus on Friday night and long cold walk home at nearly midnight. It took us all day to pack on Saturday: thank god we were on an evening flight!

Unfortunately you fly into (and out of) the islands in the wee hours, my sister reckons it's so they can get 2 extra nights' accommodation out of tourists. It also meant it threw our body clocks out, even though there's only 2 hours (well, 22 hours) time difference. Having arrived at 3am, our first morning there was Saturday, and we had to get up to see the Saturday markets, as we would be gone by the following Saturday. We were all a bit hot, tired and grumpy, but even more so when the bus went straight past us. A coconut crashed out of a tree - one would split your skull if it landed on your head! We plodded along, George junior grumbling about the heat and having to walk, even though it had only been a couple of minutes.

Luckily another bus came by very soon, and after that morning we had scooters, giving us freedom to go where we wanted when we wanted. You ride without helmets - George said it reminded him of growing up down south in the sixties, no rules. George junior thought no rules might mean he could blow things up, but we said there were still laws...

Rarotonga means "down south" too, so George felt at home. One of our tour guides there told us James Cook had landed on a northern island and was told to head down south to Rarotonga. That tour (the inland safari tour) picked us up at 8.30am, far too early when on holiday. Another grumpy day for George junior. But apart from the 2 forced early getups, he had a fabulous time. He spent as much time as possible in the water, in the pool at our accommodation, in the pool at other resorts, and in the sea. He didn't mind staying in the pool while we lay poolside with pina coladas, or swimming in the lagoon while we had a coffee on the deck of a seaside cafe.

The photo is George junior in the pool. Behind me (taking the photo) are 2 loungechairs, one with George on it, the other with my pink towel, a pina colada, my cosmo magazine and my sunhat.

Aaaaahhhhhh.

untitled

2008-07-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

What better time to revive the old blog than when I'm really busy?

I'm busy at work and have started up exercising almost daily again, so this is how an evening goes:

George rings at 5 to see if I'm nearly ready to go home with him; I'm not.
I finish up and get the bus home
George is cooking dinner, which usually means I do the dishes, but tonight, instead,
I go to the supermarket, pick up a few things for $102 and fill up the car (before I go, George junior asks me if I have my licence!)
I get home as George is finishing the dishes
I unpack the groceries
the boys play on the computer while I do an exercise DVD
I play on the computer while George is reading Harry Potter to George junior
I wait till my blanket has warmed up, then read in bed if George hasn't come to bed yet

I want to write, but waiting till I had the time to write a great post just meant I wasn't writing at all. Hopefully I'll start thinking like a blogger again soon!

There has been stuff happening, it'll work its way out...

fashion meme

2008-07-19T20:56:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh... haven't blogged in 4 months and don't know where to start! So how about with a meme, seeing as I sort of got tagged by Another Outspoken Female ... I'll be back! Hasta la vista, baby!

WHEN I was 1, my parents dressed me in...
home knits and hand me downs :)

WHEN I was 5, I dressed myself in...
Well I never knew what my dress myself in, I remember calling out "Mum! I don't know what to wear!"

WHEN I was 7, my favourite outfit was...
My lime green wool trousersuit with mirror panel down the front that my aunty and uncle brought me back from Afghanistan. My other sisters' were dark green, red and blue.

MY favourite school photo outfit was...
A white high-necked blouse with green sprigs on it that I wore with a green pinafore. I wore my hair in bunches with green ribbons. It was a matching outfit, a hand me down from an only child - I used to get all her clothes first and it was exciting having clothes that hadn't been my older sister's first!

IN high school the fashion trend I started was...
I bought some jeans in America with embroidery on the back pocket, that style didn't come in in New Zealand till quite a while later.

ON my first date the outfit I wore was...
A sheet and white makeup with black around my eyes. It was a horror hop!

FOR my high school formal I wore...
I made my own dress, greeny-blue satin with blue netting over the skirt. When it came to the dance I was kinda embarrassed by it!

AT my 21st I wore...
A Christian Dior suit. A childless acquaintance in Europe had noone but us to pass her hand me downs to, and we got given some nice stuff! It was a light brown top and skirt, the top buttoned up the front and had 3/4 sleeves. It had dark brown leather strips criss crossed across it.

THE oldest item of clothing I still wear is...
Probably my Leod Hais full circle long black wool skirt. One of my most expensive purchases too, bought when I was a student. Although I haven't worn it this winter cos the hem is coming undone and I can't be arsed fixing it - it's a full circle!

THE item of clothing I wish I still had was...
I keep everything longer than I should anyway, so there isn't anything I wish I still had...

MY current favourite item of clothing is...
My merino shawl that George just bought me for my birthday. It is gorgeous and far too flash to wear anywhere!

fishy

2008-03-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

"Why is there a fishy on there?" asked George junior, pointing to today on the calendar.

"The fish is a symbol of Christianity", I said, "although I'm not sure if it's particularly an Easter symbol. Catholics don't eat meat on Fridays, cos of Jesus dying on a Friday".

"Really?" said George. "I didn't know that".

"Yeah", I said, "at convent school we used to have either fish and chips on Fridays or chips and eggs. Fridays were the only good day for school dinners" I said as my mind wandered back to salty soup, salsify, boiled red cabbage, endives...

"You won't believe this", said George to George junior. "They have this story about a basket with only a few fish in it, but a crowd of 5,000 people, and no matter how many fish they handed out, they never ran out!" They both cracked up at this fishy story.

"Yeah but to them it's not just a story", I said, "they believe it. Just like you believe your stories, like the story of how Maui fished up Te Ika a Maui" (Maui's fish, the North Island).

"Yeah but that's real", said George junior.

"It's real to you", I said, "and other people's stories are real to them. Everyone everywhere has their own stories".

"No, it's real cos you can tell, cos it looks like a fish!"

I met Bad Aunt today!

2008-03-13T01:34:00.000-07:00

I met Bad Aunt today. Actually, today was the second time I met her, and hopefully I'll get to meet her again before she goes back to Japan. She is every bit as lovely and talented as she made me out to me, and I was every bit as talkative as she made herself out to be. Come to think of it, all the bloggers I've met since blogging have been talkative. Funny, that.

I actually imagined her more redheaded. She isn't redheaded at all and doesn't have any photos of her on her blog, so I totally imagined that from her shadow photo. I think that was the first thing I said to her: "oh, I thought you'd have red hair!"

She's not just a Bad Aunt you know, she's a Bad All Rounder. She has now made me take 2 long coffee breaks from work and almost made me go and drink wine with her after today's one instead of me going to back to work to make up for my absence (seeing as that wasn't my only coffee break today... ). If we had gone for wine, she wouldn't have made the show she forgot she was going to. She has also told me some Bad Things about her past that she can't possibly blog about and therefore neither can I.

I like meeting the people from inside my computer. Especially when your instincts about them are right, and they are very cool people!

The End of the Affair, or, Crazy Little Fucked-Up Thing Sort of Called Love

2008-02-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

Mr Pisces.

The time came when I had to get rid of my old writings. Diaries, letters, scribblings. George went away one weekend and I burnt a diary and a bunch of papers. But I still have 11 diaries, big envelopes full of letters, cards, a file box full of printed out emails. My problem is I want to read them once more before destroying them. You're not supposed to, you're just supposed to let them go. I remember one cautionary tale in Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui about a woman who'd kept every card she'd ever received. But when her clutter clearer told her to get rid of them, she started looking through them again and before long she was in tears over all the people she was no longer in touch with.

But long enough has passed now for me that the content of my diaries amuses rather than depresses or horrifies me. Still, I only ever wrote them for me and would be totally depressed and horrified at the thought of anyone else reading them. This hit home after the tsunami, when my little sister and I realised if we'd both been done in the tsunami we wouldn't have been able to take care of each other's stuff. So, I'm determined (and ready) to take care of it myself. At least, the stuff concerning Mr Pisces. I'm not sure I'm ready yet to deal with the fallout from Mr Virgo.

So, Mr Pisces. Earmarked entries from the diary I read this morning. In chronological order.

********************************
It's because of him I haven't had a boyfriend in a year and a half. We haven't got caught in a year and a half of surreptitious sex. And no-one's found out. But having this 'close call' tonight made me think "I DON'T want to get caught! I DON'T want to stop!"

[Friend] said maybe Mrs Pisces would find out, they'd break up, then Mr Pisces and I could get together again. I said I never would. But I would if he'd love me. That's all I ever wanted when we were together and it never happened so I'm not going there again. I'll work on getting a boyfriend next year. It'll all be all right. I'll stop sleeping with Mr Pisces (not that we've ever been asleep together in the last 2 years) and I'll have a sustained, intimate relationship with a new man.

****************************
And anyway there's Mr Pisces, who I love, who I get on so well with, who I have great sex with. It's coming up 5 years since I met him and we started going out. And it's still not going anywhere. At least then there was a chance it would. But now there's not cos he's living with a girlfriend. So I'm stuck. Not that I mind - that's the problem really. I quite like it! But I know it's not good for me. That it won't get me anywhere (and in fact could get me into a big mess!) and that as long as I'm having an affair with him I won't have a boyfriend.

So I need to stop sleeping with him to get anywhere. But how do I stop sleeping with him?

*****************************
He told me the other day that for every man who's having an affair there's a woman he's having it with. I flashed my eyes at him and said 'but I'M not cheating on anyone!"

It's not just her he's cheating. He's cheating himself. I shouldn't be so concerned. I should leave him to it.

******************************
I'd kinda like to go but I won't because Mrs Pisces will be there. He said that's OK, and "haven't you met her?" but it's not OK. I'm all into people having honest relationships but not into pretending to be honest about not having a sexual relationship with him when I do. I would be kinda sad about him not being my boyfriend even though I don't want him to be my boyfriend. I can be upfront about that bit while hiding my sexual attraction/response to him. And maybe she'd be smug about being his girlfriend while I'm not, about taking him off me while he was with me. I still feel sad about that even, so why even try to pretend it's OK when it's not, it's not, it's not. Why pretend that it's cool for me to be part of his life when it's not cool, it's not OK. Not by me, not by her. Only by him and he's kidding himself. Kidding her, kidding me. We're all being shortchanged. I don't think he's going to leave now either. He said he would after summer, but he's not going to.

*********************************
And then he rang and said "I'm not coming round". I'm sure he heard the disappointment in my voice. A good reason - as always - but I was pissed off with myself for once again being vulnerable, being in a position where I felt so powerless - which is exactly what I want to talk to him about.

I don't want to just sit back and take it. Take whatever he gives me. He said he'd try and come later but that too is out of my hands.

I rang [friend] last weekend. She was just breaking up with her girlfriend because they live so far apart so they don't get to see each other much. When they're together they're really happy. But when they're apart they're miserable, and [friend] said the happiness doesn't make up for all the time they're miserable, which is most of the time.

I'm not miserable when I'm not with him, not at all, but it is true that the pleasure i get from the tiny amount of time I have with him is not worth the long stretches I don't get to see him, nor the lack of control I have over when I get to see him.

************************************************
I was thinking 'what can I do?' Well one thing I could do is just turn up at his house. Last time he was supposed to come round here, the reason he couldn't was someone turned up. "That's the problem", he said, "so many people come round to my house". Well, I thought, that wouldn't be a problem if I could do the same - if I was entitled to visit him at home like any other friend. I don't want sex if I can't also have time with him. Just having cuppas, hanging out, having a smoke, talking, watching videos, playing backgammon... but I'm not sure if I want all that without the sex. Would I rather have just the friendship than just the sex? Well that's not really the choice, it isn't just sex now. It's not even sex, just talk around when/how we next might.

Ai ai. the life of a mistress.

******************************************************
I've been thinking of ringing Mr Pisces but thinking I can't, cos then I'd have to see him, which would either mean sleeping with him or ending it, neither of which I feel able to do. I've gone over and over it in my head. It still comes down to this: I want him to make a decision about his relationship with Mrs Pisces. Either to stick with her (and finish with me) or to leave her and be single (and either finish with me or start an open relationship with me).

********************************************************
Afterwards, we started talking.

He said he doesn't know where he's going, he just lives life one day at a time. But that he tries to stay in touch with me, because he wants us to be in contact for the rest of his life. He doesn't want to stop me from meeting the quality man I need in my life, and he knows he might lose me, but he doesn't want to lose me. He won't ever say no to me. I told him how much I struggle with it, how close I've been to stopping, so many times, but how in the end I don't want to give him up, it's too nice and I want it. I like his approach to life, I always feel good around him, feel good after I've seen him.

He held my hand. He even said "I love you" in amongst all the other things he said. He has never said that before. I didn't say it back, just kept quietly crying. I told him I'm ambivalent about meeting a new man, because although I do want a boyfriend, I don't think I'll want to give Mr Pisces up. So there's difficulty before I even start. Mr Pisces said if I met the right man I'd be OK.

So, if it ends, it has to be me who ends it. Does that change anything?

He loves me. Does that change anything?

**********************************************
Breakfast at Parade Cafe with [sister], where we discussed motives for having an affair - that fact that magazines (representing conventional wisdom) always take the stance that a woman must be doing it because she wants to become a couple with the man. And that the man's only doing it for sex. Whereas I don't want to be in a couple with Mr Pisces, and he is in it for more than sex.

******************************
3 years since we broke up. I've known him for longer as his ex-girlfriend than as his girlfriend.

******************************
Sex for him can't be as exciting as it is for me, cos he does it all the time, like drugs. For me, it's an occasional treat to enjoy with relish.

******************************
I'm happy with my relationship with Mr Pisces. We are in touch every week at the moment. It's nice. I feel close to him. [Friend] and I saw a play Saturday night, a woman in it was having an affair (married man, been having an affair 5 years). I was asking myself why do it? Why? Nothing seems to make it worth doing. In her case, he couldn't leave his wife cos she was ill (supposedly - she actually wasn't) and the woman said she'd done so much analysing, so much justifying... but she loved him, and she wanted them to be together.

I don't want us to be together and I don't even love him. Well not in the sense most people would think of. I love him in my own way. But that's not it. After his last visit I just thought "I'm doing this because I really like it!" Not for some further-down-the-track benefit, but for what it is now. Crazy little fucked-up thing sort of called love.

******************************
Last night I was thinking: right! I am gonna lose 7 kilos, save $7,000 and give up Mr Pisces!

Tonight I'm thinking: I'm not giving up Mr Pisces, why should I? I like it and it's good for me! I like being single but I love having a gorgeous dark sexy man talk dirty to me and fuck me every now and again, a man who knows me, loves me, cares about me, makes love to me passionately, sings to me, plays beautiful songs, who teases me, laughs with me, philosophises with me...

We both love it and it's no bloody wonder neither of us is prepared to give it up.

********************************
I guess if we hadn't already been a couple before I'd be thinking that was it - if only we could find a way to be together. But that's not the solution here - the being lovers is all there is. So I shouldn't be scared of loving him.

**********************************
Was thinking today we're getting closer and more intimate and more loving but I'm not free to love him so I should stop before it takes me over. Tell him I can't.

**********************************
What is the point? We have fantastic sex, so what? He hasn't been any support for me. In fact, it's the opposite - his intimacy with me leaves me vulnerable, but I don't have the protection of his being a partner to me. The stakes are too high. I don't wanna play anymore.

***********************************
I haven't rung him, nearly did today, I've been wanting him! But not wanting to throw away the long silence just like that, I want us to talk, spend some time together - or maybe not, maybe I do just want a good bedding and no serious talk - see, that's why I can't call him, I just don't know which way to play it.

**********************************
Yesterday it was 6 years since the day I met him, singing and playing his guitar out the back of the wharenui. He tane ataahua [beautiful man], I thought then, gentle and lovely, and I still do. But not a partner. I didn't think so then and I don't now, but he was offended that I didn't think he was a long-term prospect and ai ai look how long he's hung around. It is lovely having him in my life, I so enjoy my time with him. But it doesn't fit into my life. I keep deciding I have to cut it out of my life.

**********************************
And hey, Mr Pisces hasn't rung again, maybe he's given up. I can't imagine he'd do that but that would make it easy for me, wouldn't it! I wouldn't have to do anything and the problem of what to do would disappear. But I still can't help feeling disappointed he'd give up on me so easily (or give me up).

*********************************
I don't like it that I think of him so often. And not having seen him or talked to him for a while, I have been thinking of him less often. He might have realised I'm trying to give him up, and he might have decided to let me, cos he knows I've wanted to before. Part of me still thinks he should have tried harder. But nothing would be enough - he could turn up on my doorstep with flowers, and tell me he's got a place of his own, ask me out for dinner - and it wouldn't be enough.

He'd never turn up with flowers anyway.

I just have to remember when I next see him that "it isn't enough". Being in his presence affects me. I'm so attracted to him that it's incredibly hard not to give in to it.

********************************
Mr Pisces hasn't rung in all these weeks and I don't know if he will. He'll be leaving it to me, like I'm leaving it to him. I thought the other day that he might be letting me go, knowing that I've wanted to for a while, and now that I've made an effort to he's making an effort to let me.

I still think about sex with him a lot. It was all good.

*********************************
6 months ago I wrote that I was gonna lose 7 kilos, save $7,000 and give up Mr Pisces. And I've done it.

He DID know what I was up to. He rang me today, said he'd decided I'd had long enough. I told him I missed him, he said he'd missed me. Wants to see me tomorrow. I told him I'd needed to take a step back to clear my head but I wanted to see him again now. I do want him in my life, but I haven't gone through 3 months without him in my life to just take up where we left off. His timing was so good. The 3 months I'd decided I'd need had gone by, I was going to ring him this week, I'd come to the end of this book, wanting closure - and he knew. I feel really good about seeing him again.

All's well that ends well.

************************************

And that was the very last entry in the book. I've burnt it now, yay!

Reading back over those times now, so many years later, when all the emotion has gone out of the situation (I bumped into Mr Pisces at the end of last year when I was with George. I introduced them and it was fine. I felt nothing for him! I was very relieved about that!!), I can see what a struggle it was for me, what a difficult situation it was to be in. No wonder I was always exhausted! But I got through it, I got myself out of it. It took a long time and I found it really hard, but life is so much easier now.

And happier!

Tales From the Crib

2008-02-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Four months since I blogged, eh? I guess there are a few tales to tell. The title of this post is courtesy of my sister's friend who did a South Island road trip with us. I asked him what I should call him on my blog. All he came up with was Specimen A.

* She got him for Christmas. The counsel for the child interviewed George junior in her home, which hardly seemed neutral, and asked him about what Christmas would be like at Mum's and at Dad's. Seeing as he hasn't had Christmas with his Daddy since he was 4 years old he seemed pretty unsure about what that would be like. But he did know he wanted to be at the unveiling. Which we had always said was fine, as long as she held it when she had him, which could be any time except Christmas Day.

* To help things go her way, she booked a flight for George junior to fly down to the South Island to be with his Daddy on Christmas Day, after the unveiling which, according to the programme mockup she supplied, was to be held from 9.30-10.30am on Christmas morning. She did not consult with George at all before booking this non-refundable flight. He was to arrive at 4.30pm, so not actually getting to be with the family until after 5pm on Christmas Day. George told me if the court agreed with her crazy plan he would let her have him on Christmas Day as spending half the day on planes and in aiports by himself was no way for a child to spend Christmas Day.

* After the counsel for the child's report recommended George junior be at the unveiling on Christmas Day, George's lawyer advised him to go with her flying him down on Christmas Day plan seeing as she was obviously agreeable to it, but trying to get her to agree to the rest of the holiday as he wanted it.

* So they agreed out of court that she would fly him down on Christmas Day, as per her booking, and then we would have him with us at the crib for a whole month. They also signed up to us having him next Christmas.

* Before George went down south, she told him in a phonecall "if anything like this comes up next year, you'll have to take George junior's wishes into account". George said "what do you mean, he's with me next Christmas!" and she said "that's what you think". This sounded ominous, so George sent off a note to his lawyer who probably thought he was mad... you can see where this is headed, right?

* I had a lovely Christmas with my family. George had Christmas with his family. On Christmas morning, he got a call from her saying there was a mistake on the headstone so they had to get it reground, but they could have the unveiling on the 28th if she could keep George junior till then. George said no, get him on that plane.

* After several more calls and texts where he reiterated that she needed to get him on the plane as they had agreed, he turned his phone off. He said it was his Christmas too, and she was ruining it.

* When he turned his phone back on, there was a message to say they'd "missed" the plane.

* So, once again, they didn't have the unveiling, and once again, she had him on Christmas Day. Even though the reason she got him on Christmas Day was in order to have the unveiling.

****************************************************
We had a lovely month down south though. I had 2 tiki tours with Speciman A and Flying Kiwi, one to Akaroa and one to Stewart Island. We also did a bit of work on the crib, went fishing, hung out with family, played a lot of scrabble and had a nice, relaxing holiday.

****************************************************
George junior was awesome. He gets to completely relax and just be himself when he's with us. His mother lurches from one crisis to the next, no wonder he feels anxious. Removed from her influence, we had no dramas with him. The worst fight we had was over the pronunciation of gondola. He insisted it was conDOLa. After telling him it was GONdola, that it was Italian and that I knew better than Daddy (and Daddy agreed and told him I knew what I was talking about), he kept being cheeky about it. I told him he had a choice, he could stop being cheeky and I'd still take him on the gondola and luge as planned, or, if he continued, he could go home with Daddy and have a boring afternoon at home (George was sick and was taking to bed) and I'd take the car and go into Queenstown and go shopping and to the internet cafe. He continued, I went off and had a better time than I would've if I'd been with him and he had to pretend he'd had a great time, so everyone was happy!

Back home, he went to his mum's for the last bit of the holidays and when he got back to us we had several episodes where he had angry outbursts. They came from nowhere, but we got to the bottom of it. I was holding him, because he was struggling to kick and hit out, and I was saying "just tell me what's wrong" and he said "I can't tell you the things she said, because she told me not to!" So George had a big talk with him and it transpires that she asks George junior to tell her all the bad things I do. She doesn't want to know the good things, only the bad. If he doesn't say things, she gets angry and swears at him.

I stopped being angry with him straight away. I knew there was something behind his behaviour, but Jesus. How dare she. Once again, I said to George that he has to be his son's champion, he has to let him know that he can always talk to us, that he's always safe with us.

He's been his usual delightful self ever since. I thought about writing a story about a little volcano that couldn't help erupting and scaring all the villagers...

***********************************************************
Because they still haven't had the unveiling yet, she told George she wanted George junior at Easter. We usually have him at Easter, cos we get public holidays and she gets school holidays. Christmas holidays are half each, and that's when we always go down south. So Easter is our only chance to go elsewhere on holiday with him. I guess she knew she wasn't going to be able to get away with stealing yet another Christmas, but I was not happy about her stealing Easter too.

But after a couple of days of spewing lava myself, a cunning plan formed in my mind.

"How about", I said to George, "if we say she can have Easter if we can have the first week of the July school holidays and we take him to Rarotonga?" And we did!

She would have to legally agree to this, because currently neither of them can take him out of the country (an order we put in place when we just didn't know what she was going to do next).

And guess what? She agreed!!! George thought she would, he said she just gets totally focussed on what she wants.

It's all signed up and agreed, our holiday is booked and paid for. AND we get him next Christmas for my first Christmas with him.

But perhaps I'd better not get too smug too soon, as of course the blessed unveiling still hasn't actually happened...

lining up the ducks

2007-10-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

I hate sport. But life is full of sporting cliches, so I thought I'd use this post as an opportunity to pull a few out of my arsenal. Heh.

We're battling George junior's mother again, this time over her insistance that she have him for the 4th Christmas in a row, this year because it's her father's unveiling. George has pointed out that the parenting order states that they have alternate Christmases and that unveilings are by agreement. She asked if she was being penalised for her father dying on Christmas Eve. George's lawyer said no, in fact, her client flew George junior to be with her for her father's tangi at short notice, and agreed she could have him last Christmas for the unveiling. She didn't tell us till late January that they didn't have the unveiling after all and that's why she'd have to have him this year. George has never agreed to that, telling her she needed to tell her family that they have a they have an agreement that they have alternate Christmases and that if she wants George junior to be at the unveiling they should hold it at a time when he's in her care. She responded that George has made life very stressful and difficult for her and George junior over the last 3 years (! ! !) and that all that is standing between her being with her son is a piece of paper, known as a parenting order (comma, hers).

So, stalemate.

And hey ho, hey ho, it's off to court they go.

What do you do? Roll with the punches. Give as good as you get. Have a game plan. Psych your opponent out. Lay down and die. Sail with the wind - hmmm, OK, I don't know enough about sport to even know the analogies!

I went for a run on the weekend and thought about it. The best I can do is roll with the punches and go with the flow. Be as prepared (calm, healthy, happy) as I can. It's not about me - I won't be at court. Remember my counsellor's advice? Stay away from the whirlwind.

George says we have to keep on enforcing the parenting order, not let her get away with all her attempts at undermining it. Stick to our guns! He's right. But man, it's frustrating. It's Christmas next month, and we can't make bookings will we know when George junior will be with us.

So, got any other sporting cliches for me?

At the end of the day it's all about who plays the better game?

There must be 50 ways to eat your silverbeet

2007-10-19T02:15:00.000-07:00

You just slip it in a Big Mac
Or into a flapjack
You don't need to do a curry
But do feel free
Drink it as juice, just
You don't need to digest much
Just chop off the stems, man
And make a smoothie

We are overwhelmed with silverbeet, to the point where George told me we couldn't go out for dinner because we had too much to eat in the garden. He planted a new crop a couple of months ago, along with spinach. He also wanted to plant bok choy, but I said we had more than enough green leafery (we also have many lettuces).

Another stolen meme

2007-10-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

This one stolen from Anno

Total number of books
I shall just go count. See you tomorrow.

Last book read
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. Gave me an icky but fascinated feeling right from the first sentence and both only increased as the book went on. I've wanted to read this book ever since I read that the spoken intro to Madonna's "What it feels like for a Girl" is from the movie made from this book. In fact, she got Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is in the movie, to speak those words - you know, the ones that go something like "girls can wear jeans and things, cos it's all right for a girl to dress like a boy. But you think to dress like a girl is degrading, because being a girl is degrading". So when I saw it on a friend's bookshelf I asked to borrow it. It's only a little book, took about 3 days to read, but will stay with me a long time *shudder*.

Last book bought
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. Our latest bookclub book. Am really enjoying it. Even though, as you may have already read on Facebook, I once misread the title (upside down) as The Inebriation of Ross, which may also have made a good story.

One-word meme - stolen from Ms Mac

2007-10-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Where is your mobile phone? Bedroom
Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend? Steadfast
Your hair? Fluffy
Your mother? Visiting
Your father? Ditto
Your favourite item? Tiki
Your dream last night? Argumentative
Your favourite drink? Water
Your dream car? Electric
The room you are in? Kitchen
Your ex? History
Your fear? Tsunamis
What do you want to be in 10 years? Content
Who did you hang out with last night? Rellies
What you’re not? Blogging
The last thing you did? Drink
What are you wearing? Pink
Your favourite book? Intelligent
Last thing you ate? Parmesan
Your life? Well-lived
Your mood? Philosophical
Your friends? Diverse
What are you thinking about right now? Takeaways
Your car? Rustbucket
What are you doing at the moment? Drinking
Your summer? Imminent
Your relationship status? Steady
What is on your TV? Photo
When is the last time you laughed? Today
Last time you cried? Yesterday
School? Many

Unless...

2007-09-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

The ferry terminal was an escape, and I didn't mind that I had time to fill. I sat at a table by myself reading a book. I heard English spoken a couple of tables away, and glanced over every now and then to the well-dressed elderly couple and the young backpacker with them. He smiled at me and I smiled back, before returning to my book. Later, he showed me a sign he'd written. It said "English?"

I didn't mind travelling by myself, apart from all the unwanted male attention. Just before coming to the terminal I'd answered yet another query from yet another charming Italian man as to the whereabouts of my boyfriend with a lie - he's waiting for me at the terminal. I ducked into a bookshop and willed him to leave me alone. Why wasn't it OK to be travelling on my own and to like it that way? Or was it obvious that I was supposed to be travelling with my boyfriend and was utterly pissed off with him for having abandoned me half way through our Eurail trip to go to a job in Australia. We were supposed to be on a romantic 15-day tour all through Europe, followed by Christmas with my family in Switzerland. He lasted about 7 days, during which we'd fought a lot anyway. He hadn't wanted to come on this trip at all, so I guess it wasn't a big surprise that Australia won. I had worked hard to save up for the Eurail pass, so wasn't going to let his departure be the end of it. Although I was scared, I decided to travel to Greece on my own.

I was expecting Greece to be difficult to negotiate, but I wasn't even there yet. I didn't speak Greek but I did speak enough Italian to get by. But these southern Italian men were not making it easy for me. I tried to dodge a local who offered me a free berth on the ferry, but he was determined to make my acquaintance. He said I needed to go to his house for him to arrange it and I didn't want to, but he insisted he wasn't up to anything. He told me he had thank you cards from others he had helped get berths on the ferry -he could show me those at his house, too. I only made it as far as just inside the front door. There were cards on a little table there, all right, he showed me one from an American girl. On a rack under the table were a few little wrapped gifts. It was all so prearranged. "I'm not like those American girls", I said. "And I don't need a berth on the ferry."

And yet here I was half an hour later smiling at this stranger in the terminal. He didn't come over - he didn't even show his sign. We only met when the boarding call was finally made, and I saw him struggling to carry the older couple's suitcases. I went to help, and discovered he'd only just met them. They were travelling first class, and offered to buy us drinks at the bar to thank us for carrying their luggage. The backpacker was South African and travelling by himself. Back in the main part of the boat we sat with some young American girls who had a backgammon set. We played backgammon and cards, talked, read, and slept as best we could in our sleeping bags across the seats.

I think we got a train to Athens. I just remember it being evening and all of us - me, him and the American girls - standing at a reception desk asking about rooms. The girls were including me in their number and asking me if that was OK and I was going sure but looking at him. He said "unless-" and just looked at me.

If it hadn't been for that "unless-", my nostalgia for Greece wouldn't be what it is. We bought a backgammon set in the markets in Athens and played it on the train to Kalamata, where we climbed a hilltop and played backgammon in a convent garden.

He left, maybe he was going back to South Africa for Christmas. I carried on on my own for a few more days. I had a couple of runins with sleazy Greeks (a jeweller in Olympia and an inevitable Costa), but felt better able to handle it. Better able to handle myself, I think.

Things are different now, you can always keep in touch. You keep up with the people you meet travelling via email, blogs, bebo, myspace, facebook. Ah, facebook. You can type in a name from 19 years ago and see a match from South Africa. You look at the photo - yeah, could be. You can send a message titled "did I meet you in Greece?" After a couple of OMG messages and a couple of polite ones, I get this at the end of a message, and now, more than ever, am so glad I went with unless.

p.s. I must admit I have thought of you quite often over the years. nothing
extreme - we did only spend 3 days (what was it? it feels like longer... but
maybe that was the intensity) together - but you sure left an impression on me,
one that generally gives me a smile when I think back.

Coming ready or not!

2007-09-02T01:28:00.000-07:00

After a Friday night unlike most of my Friday nights (it involved alcohol, dancing and staying out till almost midnight!) and an unusually busy Saturday (starting with moving furniture and vacuuming before 7.30am), I was zonked by Saturday evening. And so it felt delicious to pull on my fresh-from-the-clothesline pajamas and snuggle into my bed at (ahem) 6pm. Just for a little lie-down, of course. I would get up when George came back from collecting George junior from his mum's. I knew I wouldn't sleep, but I thought I'd just relax and lie there in the dark for a bit...

I heard the key in the lock and voices - George junior chattering excitedly but also George saying "yeah, come in" (not as excitedly). And then George junior "this is the kitchen, and this is the lounge" then footsteps coming closer. I froze, even though our door was shut and George knew I was in there, I wasn't sure if George junior would have any qualms about throwing the door of our room open for her inspection. "That's Daddy's room" he said dismissively, heading straight for the most important room. "Oh, this is your bedroom" said his mum. "Now I know what your room is like". Or something like that. My head was under the covers and I was lying perfectly still, curled up, my heart beating fast. I had no choice but to stay right there and hope I wasn't exposed. I was in my pink pajamas with monkeys on them, with a head full of bedhair.

The footsteps came past again, then the front door opened and closed. I waited. George was apologetic when he came in - "she wanted to see his room", he said. I said that was fine, it was good that she's finally come into our house, and maybe it was better that I wasn't there, I wouldn't have liked to have been surprised writing my blog, say. Not that the chances of that were high, really - I noticed yesterday I only wrote one post in August. This is a backsliding blog. A friend was commenting that she doesn't blog nearly as much now that things are really good. She needed her blog as therapy when she was stuck in a job she hated and living somewhere she didn't want to be.

10 minutes later, I was up, still in my pajamas but now also with my purple dressing gown and ugg boots on. The phone rang. She was coming back, she'd left her cellphone here. I made George keep watch and go outside with the phone when she turned up. To have to cope with her in the house after all would have been too much, having thought I'd had a lucky escape.

And now I think I'll go put those pink pajamas on and go hide in my bed again with the weekend paper we bought this morning on our cafe jaunt for father's day. I thought the cafe was a much better idea than breakfast in bed seeing as I would've ended up making 3 breakfasts. We biked to the cafe - George wanted to drive, but I'm glad we didn't, because as I was hauling the bikes out of the front gate the neighbours came out with their baby on the way to the cafe too, on foot.

When we used to play hide and seek, the best hiding place was curled up on Dad's lap behind the paper. Now I've got that Womble song in my head about Uncle Bulgaria always behind The Times.

Resettlement

2007-08-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

George junior is a resilient kid, but it's a bit rough meeting your mum's new boyfriend when he's already moved in. (At least I gave him 2 months!)

It was all Fred can cook even better than you! And Fred showed me this wrestling move!

George said "I hope he's good with George junior".

I said "I've a good mind to report him to Child, Youth and Family."

Suddenly, George junior started being really clingy to George. I couldn't do anything, it had to be Daddy. One night he wouldn't even tell me what he wanted for dinner, he said he'd only tell Daddy and only Daddy could cook it. But he wouldn't even tell me that, he ignored me completely. George, of course, felt sorry for him and gave him extra cuddles and was soft with him. I told him I knew it wasn't about me, but that allowing him to ignore me was not on!

It went on for a couple of weeks. The weather hasn't been good enough for us to have our trampoline sessions, which is great for me getting one-one-one time with him. But finally he's let me read him a bedtime story again - he even let me sign his school reading and he's never done that before, has always told me I'm not a parent, so I can't sign! And he asked me on the weekend to go to the park and kick a ball around with him. And last night we drew a big underwater scene on our new chalkboard door on the kitchen cupboard. I'll take a photo once I've rubbed off our real names. Next, I suggested we draw a jungle. It's going to have monkeys and Tarzan and dinosaurs and King Kong, apparently.

I don't know if he was punishing me for not being his parent, or if he just needed reassurance of his Daddy's commitment. Whatever, I'm just glad he's settled again.

The List

2007-07-29T01:33:00.001-07:00

Jason Gunn hosts this annoying programme where people are given a category (e.g., Feature films with Brad Pitt in them, U.S. States ending in A) and they have to decide whether they can name 3 or 5 and get $ for naming the number they say they will. Jason goes "Arizona... is on the list!"

My version goes "George Junior: name 5 things we grow in our garden"
GJ: "that's easy! salad, tomatoes, rocket [he loves the name], strawberries and beefruit [so cute I don't want to correct him]!"

Me: "George: name 5 people I work with."
George: "Um... that cat lady! Um... ... John! ... ... Kate!"
Me: "You can't name anyone I work with and yet you've been to my work parties, we've had people around for dinner, you've been to some of their houses!"
George: "Come on, you must work with a John and a Kate!"

What other things should I try with George junior? We tried him on the 7 dwarves but he'd never heard of them, so his suggestions were Juju Lips and Wedgie...

Be my Facebook friend!

2007-07-24T00:54:00.000-07:00

Who's on Facebook? I joined last night and more than half my friends are virtual - that is, I haven't met them in real life (yet). Six blog buddies so far but I'm addicted already and I want more!

So if you're on facebook and I don't know it yet, send me an email to the dot editter at gmail dot com!

Yay!!!

First. Last. Now.

2007-06-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

Meme stolen from Anno:

First

First job: I never had a job (apart from babysitting and stuffing envelopes for Dad's work) until I was at university. Another girl worked at a cafe in town and they needed more staff. It was $5 an hour under the table. I had to ask what "under the table" meant... It was 3 mornings a week, 6.30 till half an hour before my first lecture, which was 9, 10, or 11 depending on the day. I had to cook bacon, make pots of tea, wipe tables. I remember burning bacon and a customer complaint over tea. But I was there all year, so I can't've done too badly.

First screen name: This one! I'm a latecomer to all this internet connectivity. No myspace, no facebook, no twitter. I did msn for a while, but not since I got gmail.

First funeral: I remember being disappointed that I wasn't allowed to go my great-grandfather's funeral when I was 7. My older sister was allowed to go. In my mind (although this probably isn't true) she told me he wore a purple gown with gold crosses on it, and his arms were folded on his chest. I actually can't remember my first funeral, although I do remember my first tangi (Maori funeral on a marae). It wasn't anyone I knew, I went with my university Maori class when we were on a trip. I remember telling a classmate it was my first tangi, and he told me once you're on the marae circuit you end up going to heaps. Then he tripped over some guideropes, bringing a tent down on the heads of the whanau pani (bereaved family). It was so hard holding in our totally inappropriate hysterics.

First pet: Never had one, which is why I'm hard-hearted about animals, according to some of my friends. Although I have lived in houses that had cats, including this one. It's not my cat though. When she dies, I've told George junior we'll get a dog. That will be my first pet.

First piercing: My ears. I was fourteen and had been pestering my mum for a while. I had just got my hair cut short and it showed off my earlobes. I pointed out how perfect this would be for earpiercing. "Oh all right then", huffed Mum. I adore earrings to this day. I must have 30 pairs, maybe more. (Will count later).

First tattoo: Still imaginary. And probably will remain so.

First credit card: My visa, which I've still got - and it's still my only one. George doesn't even have one.

First kiss: With my first boyfriend, 1984 (I was 19). We were on the balcony of his flat with a bunch of other people, looking out for Halley's comet. When I said I saw it, he kissed me.

First enemy: Debbie who bullied me at primary school. Apparently (I have a memory of this, but my older sister has confirmed it) I went up behind her at the drinking fountain, grabbed her plaits and yanked her head down. Ouch. I might have seemed sweet and shy, but I'm proud to remember my occasional backbone.

Last

Last car ride: George and I went into the vege market this morning, then he went to the gym and I went to work for a bit, then we met at a cafe for lunch, then came home via the garden centre where we bought some silverbeet plants.

Last kiss: When George came in all wet from planting silverbeet in the rain while I was preparing veges for our roast tonight.

Last movie watched: At the movies: Shrek the Third. On DVD: Two Cars, One Night.

Last beverage drunk: A soy latte with lunch. See below. Actually, I've had 2 glasses of water since then. And am drinking something else right now, which I've just moved to "Now: Drinking".

Last food consumed: A roast vege panini for lunch at the cafe.

Last phone call: Me calling George from work to say I'd just realised the time and was on my way to the cafe we'd agreed to meet at for lunch.

Last time showered: Yesterday morning. I mean(t) to do a Kathy Smith DVD at some point today, followed by a shower. Although it's now 5.37pm, so don't really have time before the news... (not if I'm going to finish this first, which I am).

Last CD played: Oh, just had to move my current one to Now: Listening. The one before was Dido, with a few Little Birdy tracks on the beginning of the CD (that my sister burned for me).

Last website visited: Blogger now, before that Anno's place.

Now

Single or taken: Taken

Gender: Female

Birthday: July 13th

Sign: Cancer, with Leo rising. Also Firehorse.

Siblings: Three sisters.

Hair color: Dark brown.

Eye color: Hazel.

Shoe size: 38.

Height: 168 cm.

Wearing: brown velvet trackpants and a thick Alaskan shirt (it says Brooks Lodge Alaska and has an embroidered logo of a bear with a salmon in its mouth on it). Thick brown socks, purple and teal felt slippers. It's the middle of winter...

Drinking: Gin and lemonade. Wishing I'd bought one of the $2 bags of limes I saw at the market.

Thinking about: How flying kiwi should do this meme, cos it would get her blogging.

Listening to: " Jack Johnson: In Between Dreams. Love, Stella xxx"

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2007-06-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

Our latest bookclub book is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver (her husband and daughter). I read about it in a comment on Cecily's blog on this post about food, and then at our last bookclub we were discussing what our next read would be. We usually just talk about books we want to read until we find one that several of us agree would be good. Someone saw Mister Pip on the bookshelf and suggested that, but we'd already read it before she joined (and loved it). I spotted The Poisonwood Bible and asked if the person whose house we were at had read it, but she hadn't (I said she must, immediately - it's such a fabulous book). And that's when I remembered having read about this new Barbara Kingsolver. Everyone immediately wanted to read it.

It's not a novel though, so it's slow going. It doesn't make you stay up late to find out how the tomatoes turned out... What it has done, though, is made me use 2 recipes (all the recipes from the book are here) from it already and I'm not even half way through the book!

Last night we had Friday Night Pizzas (George junior and I had a bowl each, and he copied me adding yeast, flour, oil and salt to our warm water. His dough turned out better than mine too, hmpf. His pizza had tomato paste, ham and cheese; George's and mine also had caramelised onion and garlic with mushrooms and aubergine and silverbeet [which I have learned from the book is called chard in America]). Today we had Eggs in Nests - eggs poached in depressions made in a bed of silverbeet cooked with onion, garlic and tomatoes, and served on brown rice. The most amazing thing about that was I served it up to the boys (George junior had a friend over) as well as to my aunt who was over for lunch and the boys didn't say yuck! They also didn't eat it all, but they did eat some of the silverbeet while eating the egg. And that is the first time ever George junior has eaten silverbeet.

It was a vegetable miracle!

2 more answers

2007-06-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

My hot'n'spicy sister asked "What's your most embarrassing moment (that you can share on the web of course)?"

2 moments that fit the criteria that I have already blogged are the flash and the fondle.

The only other incident that comes to mind is when I was working at Telecom Australia, now called Telstra (same thing if you say it fast enough) and we'd had something delivered in a person-sized box. So I put it over my head and walked around issuing instructions to my staff (yes, I was a supervisor). But they were so serious, they were hissing at me to take the box off, so I started being even goofier. Till someone took the box off me to introduce me to the big boss who'd come to our office unannounced. He ignored me and asked one of my staff where he could find a particular piece of documentation. She said "oh, I'm sure it's fucked away in a tiling drawer somewhere!" He did have a sense of humour - he just asked where the tiling drawers were!

Fi asked "If one band or singer could play a private concert for you and your friends and family, who'd it be?"

Hmmm, one band or singer for friends and family? My first answer when I read this question was Robbie Williams! To which George groaned. But he's an all-round entertainer, and I know what it's like to have him perform just for me, cos honest, when I went to his concert in Wellington he looked right at me!

Different vibes for different folks though - me and flying kiwi could have Little Birdy or Stellar, me and Cesca and Leo could have Michael Franti, me and Fi could have D-Man, me and Violet and Ms Mac could have The Wiggles, me and my Wellington friends could have Little Bushmen or the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra!

Actually, the Ukuleles cross all age groups and musical bents and are, after all international, so I'll pick them!

Also, this is my 150th post. Martha has been blogging for 2 months more than me and has just passed 1,000 posts. In my first month of blogging (May 2005) I wrote 14 posts. In my most prolific month of 2006 I did 10. So far this year, May was my most prolific month and I wrote 4 posts. It's going to take a long, long time for me to get to 1003 posts is all I can say.

Striking out. On my own.

2007-05-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

I thanked the taxi driver and gave him my pre-paid transport voucher. I had one night in Copenhagen en route to the States, where I would be meeting up with the rest of my family for Christmas in Alaska. It was already dusk, and with my flight out early in the morning I had no need for cash. The travel agent in New Zealand had given me pre-paid transport and hotel vouchers. I had planned to walk to the Tivoli gardens, see the little mermaid, have a look at the shopping streets - I felt I would be safe on an evening just before Christmas in Copenhagen. Even though I was 17, on my own, and didn't speak Danish.

The taxi driver had no sooner dumped my suitcase on the roadside then he was off. He was well on his way by the time I turned around to see that the hotel he had dropped me in front of was under renovation - it was just a shell. I went in anyway, what else could I do? A couple of builders in white overalls were still there chatting, one sitting on a workhorse. There was nothing there - the building was clearly in the process of being demolished.

"Hotel?" I said, tentatively.

"Hotel finish!" said the workhorse workman. They both laughed. What else was there to do?

I lugged my suitcase back out to the street, sat on it and tried not to cry. I had no money. At 17, no visa card. In those days, no cellphone.

A distinguished-looking gentleman in a trenchcoat and hat and with a silvery beard stopped and enquired, I suppose, if I was all right. "English?" I asked, hopefully. He did speak English, and after hearing my sad story, took me down the road to another hotel where I sat in an armchair in the lobby with tears falling freely now while he had a heated discussion with someone on the desk. They told me they didn't have to honour my voucher, but that they would, and that I would need to sort it out with the travel agent on my return to New Zealand.

No Tivoli gardens. No Little Mermaid. No Christmas window shopping on cobbled streets.

No, my one night ever in Denmark was spent feeling rather shaken up and sorry for myself, drinking the contents of the mini-bar and reading my book (the bone people) in my hotel bed.

I did make it out of Denmark the next morning without incident. But it wasn't smooth sailing flying to the family rendezvous in Alaska. I was supposed to meet my older sister in Seattle , but there were storms delaying flights all over the place. I checked in at San Francisco for my flight to Seattle, but then they told me I wouldn't be likely to make my connecting flight to Anchorage, but they could put me on a direct flight from San Francisco. I had just bought myself an icecream, thinking I was in for a long wait, so ended up running to get onto a small plane that had started taxiing out but came back to get me. As I walked onto the plane, they were making an announcement to say they were picking up one passenger. The only available seat was in first class. I was wearing my blue cotton overalls with shirring at the top and the waist, probably had my hair in pigtails and was eating an icecream. The fat American I sat next to in first class was jovial, so after he'd asked for my story I asked him what he did. "I own this airline" was his reply.

I made it to Anchorage a day before my sister and several days before our luggage. My sister hadn't known what had happened to me, as she'd been told I was on the flight, but I didn't come off! She'd missed the flight to Anchorage we were both supposed to be on in order to wait for me. I remember that for days we kept making trips back to the airport hoping to collect people and luggage.

Things are far too convenient these days with cellphones! When I arrived in Colombia for the first time, flying kiwi wasn't there to meet me. I had no local currency and no cellphone, but the Colombian male model (!) I'd been sitting next to on the plane lent me his cellphone and I rang the emergency number she'd given me. Her friend told me she'd definitely left for the airport... and then said hang on, there are 2 gates, she might be at the other one. She was. Whew.

3 answers

2007-05-23T00:34:00.000-07:00

Violet's question is: Who is your favourite (or least disliked) Wiggle, and why?

Violet, Violet, Violet. You know me and you ask me this? All I know about individual Wiggles is that one is called Jeff (and I don't know what colour he is), that the Yellow one had a mystery illness (that is, I can't recall what the illness was) and that the Blue one has a secret past (according to the cover of an Australian Women's Weekly I read in Sydney and again in Yass, but even though I read articles from it on 2 occasions, I still did not read about the Blue Wiggle.) But based on that, I'll pick him.

Flying Kiwi's question is: Where would your tattoo be and what would it be of?

Mr Pisces always said he was going to design me a tattoo - he was always saying things that never happened, but I thought this one actually might. And if it had've (and had it?), it would've been a Maori design and been an upper arm band or a thigh band (depending on how big his design was!)

Badaunt's question is: What is your most vivid memory of your first week (or two) after leaving home? (i.e. Leaving your parents' home and striking out on your own.)
Leaving home wasn't typical for me, as I left my family in Europe to come back to New Zealand to complete my schooling at age 17. I lived with my grandparents, which was a very cosy experience - not how leaving home would generally be described, I imagine. My grandparents were in their mid-60s, active, and lived right by the beach. I found school very easy after our 10-hour days in Belgium, and the days were so short. My general impressions more than half my life later are of sunshine, lots of walking and swimming at the beach, home baking, letters from overseas, happily studying at my desk in my room, lots of reading and writing... Easy and happy and rather carefree really, but then I wasn't exactly striking out on my own!

Keep asking!

5 questions... 10 questions... any advances on 10?

2007-05-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

Martha was supposed to give me 5 questions to answer, but I guess she still hasn't found two braincells to rub together (her excuse, in her words), so I thought I'd steal the questions she was asked and answer them myself.

1. What is your most irrational fear? Why?

That I will tumble down stairs I'm about to walk down. I think I read or heard that if you think about something it was more likely to happen (years ago, pre The Secret) and that was the example they used. Since then of course I haven't been able to stop myself from imagining me tumbling down as I approach stairs, it's become such a habit.

2. What's your favourite word?

Indubitably. George's favourite word is stanima.

3. If you could change one thing about yourself (physically or emotionally) what would it be?

I'd have a tattoo. Like have it already there, not actually have to go through the getting round to getting it, or the getting it.

4. What talent do you wish you possessed?

I'd like a really cool party trick - doesn't matter what, just something better than the double-jointed thumb I have...

5. Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?

Um here? It's cool to live here by choice, having lived in lots of other countries, including non-English-speaking ones.

And then I thought I'd steal the ones she posed to Pixie and answer those too:

1. What direction in life didn't you take when you were 18?
I didn't stay in Europe (where my parents and younger sisters still were) after a year au-pairing with a French-speaking family, but came back to New Zealand to go to university. I knew this is where I wanted to live.

2. What talent are you particularly proud of?
My ability to connect with children.

3. What is your favourite thing with pasta?
My mondo bizarro sauce. We had for dinner again tonight. It's the only way to keep our silverbeet from growing out of control. Obviously, I make mine with silverbeet, not spinach, although I made lots with spinach until the spinach went to seed anyway.

4. Red or white?
Red. Pinot noir. Yum.

5. Who is your favourite actor?
We're supposed to have a favourite actor? Um - I've always had a thing for Drew Barrymore, although not because of her movies really. Although she has been in some cute movies.

Hey, if you all leave me one question to answer, we may be able to save Martha from wasting her braincells on coming up with 'em! (But you have to ask me one, OK Martha?)

Australians All Are Ostriches

2007-05-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah Gidday.

The subject is the Australian National Anthem, or, at least, the version of it my Aussie flatmate's brother sang when young. It's really Australian Sons Let Us Rejoice, or possibly Australians All Let Us Rejoice, I can't be bothered checking.

So, here I am in Australia, and have been for more than a week! I haven't met many ostrich-like Australians, but that may be because I've mainly been hanging out with Kiwis (particularly my lovely sister flying kiwi), Brits and Lithuanians (actually only the one married to my Aussie cousin).

I landed in Sydney and my sister met me at the airport and we went to Circular Quay, where I texted George to tell him I was heading out with a bunch of flight attendants. I emailed later to explain that they were friends of the friend of flying kiwi who we were meeting up with. He said he had been mildly worried, as I'd only just got off the plane and here I was going out with flight attendants! Over dinner at the Rocks they told their 9/11 stories and we told our tsunami stories. The next night we went to the Priscilla Queen of the Desert musical, which was fabulous!

And then we did a road trip from Sydney to Melbourne, which hasn't quite finished - we're in regional or inland Australia now (flying kiwi's boss says they have to call themselves inland cos it sounds better). The water shortage is much more obvious here than in Sydney. The lakes and rivers are low, water restrictions are in place, apparently people are joyous when it rains. But what if it doesn't rain again? It has to, says flying kiwi.

We've been doing the things we love doing on our holidays together - reading magazines at cafes, wandering round places (today included a wetland that wasn't very wet), op shops, playing scrabble, dinners out... speaking of which, time to get ready for tonight's winery dinner.

a series of unfortunate conversations

2007-04-19T01:14:00.000-07:00

Conversation with boss, 3 weeks ago:

"There's something I should probably tell you", I said, not looking up. "George is down south, his mother has had another stroke and is unconscious. I may well need to take time off to go to a funeral".

"Oh, I thought you were gonna say you're pregnant!"

I continued to look at the floor, and mumbled "No - I wish!"

"Oh, I shouldn't've said that..."

Conversation with friends over coffee, last weekend:

Friend 1: How's George's mum?

Me: Dead.

Friend 2: *snorts into coffee*

Conversation with George over breakfast the other day:

George: *staring out the window*

Me: are you thinking about your garden again?

George: actually I was thinking about my mum.

Conversation with George junior:

Me: now, you know Grandma is unconscious?

GJ: what's unconscious?

Me: She can't talk, she doesn't open her eyes, she is just lying there.

GJ: Maybe she's dead!

Conversation 1 between George and George junior's mother:

[seeing as I wasn't part of this one, I can only reproduce what George told me]

Her: I'll fly down with George junior.

Him: !!!

Me, when he told me: !!!!!!!

Conversation 2 between George and George junior's mother:

Him: I'll fly back, and Georgia, George junior and I will go down together.

Her: my whanau will be sending a delegation, we'll come down separately.

Him: you can't even come to our house, yet you think you can come to my mother's funeral?

Her: I've got too much respect to come to your house.

Him: !!!

Me, when he told me: !!!!!!!

Phone conversation between George and me:

Him: she'll drop him off to you on Sunday.

Me: OK...

Conversation between Her and Me:

Her: when do you fly out?

Me: tomorrow morning

Her: well, he seems happy enough...

Me *in my head* Of course he's happy! He's known me for 2 years!!!

But that's the first conversation I've had with her in almost 2 years. Small steps, said George. But really, this was a biggie. I was so scared she wasn't going to let me have George junior, or that she was going to insist on coming. But it was OK. And George was so relieved and happy to meet the 2 of us off the plane. And even though it was a sad time, it was lovely to have a few nights in our house down south.

George: Grey's Anatomy's on!

Me: Coming! *hits publish*

The new garden!

2007-04-09T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Before shot. Just a steep lawn for George to mow.Here, the grass has been killed off and logs laid out. This was not an attractive stage.After lugging a trailer full of logs up to the garden, we then had to lug up hundreds of dollars worth of plants.
After planting all the wee plants, we then had to lay wet newspaper around them one centimetre thick. This is instead of laying weedmat.On top of the newspaper, we laid bark. Had to lug 2 trailerloads of it up the hill in buckets.
Et voila, our new terraced garden!
Isn't it gorj!

George went to get George junior, who hadn't seen it since the log laying out stage. He said "I'll ask him if he notices anything new". I said "he's not going to be excited about the garden, last time we asked him if he noticed anything new, it was a new trampoline!"

So George didn't say anything. I was there when they got back. George jnr came through the gate, chatting away, then noticed and stopped still. "Whoa Daddy, it's a masterpiece!" he said.

Pervertible

2007-03-30T04:37:00.001-07:00

rubber scraper
Originally uploaded by editter_photos.

I unloaded the day's purchases. George's Gay Brother picked up my new yellow rubber scraper.

I'd been bemoaning the lack of a decent scraper in our house. George had some useless plastic scrapers, he hadn't even known rubber scrapers existed. My mother missed them so much when we moved to Europe that she always asked her sisters to give her some for Christmas, and so I grew up with an appreciation of rubber scrapers.

George's Gay Brother flicked the tip of the scraper. "Ooh!" he said.

"Lovely, isn't it?" I said. "It's silicone!"

George's Gay Brother laughed. "It's what we would call A Pervertible", rolling his r's like good Southlanders do.

Upon which George picked it up and spanked me with it. Not quite the rubber scraper appreciation I had in mind.

Apparently, those metallic potscourers and even graters are common pervertibles. They can be used to be rubbed along the skin's surface...

Well, well, well.

So, now that you're enlightened, take a look around you and let me know what pervertible your eye lands on.

hot dates

2007-03-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

As kids, we were made a fuss of on our birthdays. Every day it was someone in the family's birthday, we would all crowd around on Mum and Dad's bed and get sung to and have presents bestowed on us. We got to buy our lunch on our bithdays (a pie and a donut, eek!) and choose where to go out for dinner.

My brother in law missed my sister's birthday once (and probably only once). They were travelling through Europe, due to cross a border on her birthday. He said nothing when they got up, so she waited. As the morning went on she thought maybe he was planning something for lunch. By the time they got to the border post, she realised he may have forgotten. When the border guard handed back her passport with a "happy birthday", her husband looked at her in shock and she burst into tears!

I'm pretty good at remembering birthdays, although would be better if I had my birthday calendar hanging up like Mum does. George was touched to receive a birthday email from my parents - he said how nice it was that they'd remembered (especially given his own parents hadn't), but of course, I'd written it on Mum's birthday calendar. I asked George recently if he was going to call his brother and he asked why. I said "cos it's his birthday!" and he said "oh, is it?"

He didn't realise the 12th of March was the anniversary of my miscarriage, but it loomed very large for me. I had had a very down few days, lots of tears, and my period to boot. I said that morning "you know what today is, eh?" and he went "is this the day the horoscopes change over?" but when I told him he said "that was a very sad day. And it still is."

It's been a year of hot dates, dates I was supposed to have got pregnant again by. By 3 months after the miscarriage. By my birthday. By my due date. By Christmas. By the anniversary of when we first conceived. By the 12th of March.

At least there are no more hot dates left to burn me.

Right now though, I have a cool and drizzly date with my man in the terraced garden we've (mainly he've) been creating. I have before photos, soon will have after photos so can post them both!

Hit Me With Your Pet Shark

2007-03-01T00:13:00.000-08:00

I think George junior is getting used to me bursting into inappropriate song. Well, sometimes it might make sense to him, like when I start singing Crocodile Rock when we skip stones. (I'm never quite sure if it's supposed to be skipping stones or skimming stones - I guess skip.)

But when I start singing Hit Me With Your Pet Shark he may well think it's a real song. It's actually a misheard lyric for Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot. I sang it when George junior wished over summer that he had a pet shark (he wished for one before, remember?)

But maybe he's right with me. We were all singing along to "Knock Knock Knocking on Heaven's Door" on the radio as we were driving along in the South Island. Until I realised George junior was actually singing "Knock Knock Knocking on Henry's Door"!

That almosts beats Baa Baa Black Sheep, Happy at the Mall...

But weight: there's more!

2007-02-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

or maybe that should be butt weight...

Some of my internet activities led me to weight-loss blogs. The inspiring ones started past the point of no return, where they had already made a significant change and had photos to prove it.

So, in that vein, I have already completed Phase 1 of my master plan. The aim of Phase 1 was to maximise the impact of Phase 2. Hence, I exercised as little as possible and took every opportunity to eat fish and chips, cake and ice cream!

The difference between my Phase 1 and 2 lifestyles is dramatic. Now that I'm back at work, I'm eating a lot less and also a lot better quality food. I added exercise into the plan in a serious way a week ago. A friend gave me a one-month free gym membership (thanks New Jafa!) , I took my poor neglected bike in for an extreme makeover (needed new chain and tyres) and I've done 2 of the workouts on the Kathy Smith DVD my hot'n'spicy sister gave me. (Of course, I'll be doing those more regularly once the gym membership expires - I've done my gym programme 3 times in a week! And done a step class!)

I was actually surprised I've still had muscles and pretty good fitness all the time I haven't really been exercising. I do enjoy exercising, and more often that not in my adult life I've been fit. It really has been the time constraints of having a family life - sitting down for breakfast with my boys in the morning, driving George junior to school before we go to work, leaving work in time to collect George junior from his after school care, being the one who cooks dinner for the family. In my single days, I went to the gym at lunchtimes, then worked till 6 or later. Now, I'm not at work long enough during the day to get all my work done, let alone take time out at lunchtime for exercising. I could get the bus, but then we're paying twice for transport (as George has a carpark in town).

So I'm pleased I've got cycling sorted as an exercise option, cos at the moment (middle of summer) it allows me to extend my work day and get my exercise. I've only cycled home once so far (we have the bike rack on the car so I can still get a ride one way - would be too much for me at the moment to cycle both ways), but it has only been a week!

Of course, I still have that conflicted thing going on of not actually being committed to losing weight, because actually I want to be pregnant. The theory behind my Phase 1 lifestyle during our holidays was that I'd try the completely relaxed approach. But I'm a whole size bigger now than I was before I got pregnant a year ago and a year is a long time to have put things on hold - things like getting into shape and visiting my sister in Oz (who appears to have lost that blogging feeling).

I'm booked! I'm off to visit her in a couple of months. Pregnant or not. Actually, I'm only booked one way, cos I found a really cheap one over. Figure I've got time to sort out getting back again. As I ended my phonecall with my sister I said "how do you think my boyfriend will take me telling him I've got a one-way ticket to Oz booked - on our anniversary?!"

Photo Tour, South Island

2007-02-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

Photos, as promised! I've picked my favourite scenery and wildlife shots from our South Island summer holiday.

Starting with my favourite: Lupins at Lake Tekapo. This is the middle of summer, but look at the snow on them there hills! It was 14 degrees on summer solstice, brrrr.

And some more pretty places: Jacksons Bay on the West Coast: gorgeous, but full of sandflies. Enough to drive you crazy. George tells me one place on the West Coast used to be called Porangirangi for that reason (porangi being Maori for crazy). George junior and I are actually in that photo, looking for greenstone (no, we didn't find any!)

Mussel Rock, also on the West Coast:

This one is taken from the farm George grew up on:

There's quite a prevailing wind there...

Those trees, close up:

The view from Observation Rock, Stewart Island: Enough scenery? Random stuff now, starting with Maori rock art:

George and I had stopped for an icecream in Waikari and asked the woman in the dairy if there was anything worth seeing. She told us about the rock art - there was no sign, and it was an hour's walk up a hill and down the other side. You'd never know it was there.

We had a fab day out on my sister's boat on our last day in the South Island. We went to a friend of hers' bach - 4 families, 8 kids, 2 boats, 3 kayaks, a sea biscuit, water skis, 2 black labradors, many beers, a bbq, a deck, a pool table, a beach... This is George junior's first time in a kayak - actually he went with me the very first time, then decided to have a go on his own. He loved it, and now wants us to buy a kayak for him. And a dog.
A happy house. I guess it looked sad before. (damn, can't get rid of the underline)Ok, just the wildlife now. A kunekune pig.A kaka (native parrot) on Stewart Island.

A seal, just lying on the main beach at Halfmoon Bay on Stewart Island.

George junior wanted to go onto the beach, so I went with him. An old man warned us that "they can move bloody fast" and indeed it did - not as fast as George junior though!

And this final photo is kind of a combination of wildlife and scenery: it's a shark cloud! Well, it looked really like a shark from the car. By the time we'd stopped and got the camera out, a little less so... oh well.

Kidnapping. And condoms.

2007-01-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

Last August, a 6 year old boy disappeared from the Hamilton Public Library. Yesterday, his grandfather turned up with the boy at the Hamilton Police Station.

The full story is here (I give a summary below).

I was going to participate in a message board discussion about the case today but didn't want to highlight my situation publicly on the internet. So I thought I'd blog about it instead. Ahem.

I don't know anything about this case apart from what's been made public through the media. I know that the media often doesn't get it all right and that family court certainly doesn't always get it all right. However. From what I have gathered from what has been published, here is the story:

The father had interim custody. He and Jayden's mother had separated soon after Jayden was born and had been battling over custody ever since. The mother didn't want the father to have any access at all. A friend of hers abducted the boy from the library and took him to his maternal grandfather who went into hiding with him in the Northland bush. The mother was jailed for contempt of court for not revealing their whereabouts. The grandfather returned the boy on the day she was to be sentenced on that charge. After assessment by a psychologist and an urgent custody hearing, the father has interim custody again and Jayden is with him. The mother and grandfather are now in custody pending their trial on joint kidnapping charges.

On the message board, someone was saying there must be something bad about the father for the mother and grandfather to go to such extremes to keep his son from him.

But I recognise her. She says she loves her son and her son loves her and says he wants to live with her. I'm sure that's true. As the counsel for the child said to us, most children would reply "yes" to both parents when asked if they want to live with them and will genuinely mean it. You cannot use that as a reason for awarding custody to a particular parent. She cannot see past her own desire to have her child love her more, want her more, state his desire to be with her and not with his father. She is desperate to keep her child from his father, she was prepared to do anything, and did.

Her father sent letters to the media from Jayden saying he wanted to live with his mother. Jayden's dad said he won't be interrogating Jayden.

From my perspective, Jayden's mother does not have her child's best interests at heart, and his father does.

I will have to bite my tongue for years for George Junior's sake, and I will. (Not to you, dear readers, nor to George) . It's a challenge for me, because I am an honest, upfront, outspoken person and that's the relationship I have with George Junior. He will always ask me rather than his Dad ("why, Georgia?") because he appreciates the answers I give him. I am, of course, hampered by the fact that he has the mother he has. On holiday, I was out with him when he picked up a condom (still in its wrapper, thank god) off the footpath.

"Drop that, it's yucky", I said.

"But what is it?" he asked.

"A prophelactic", I said wisely.

"What's that?" he asked solemnly.

"A condom."

"What's it for?"

"You use it when you're having sex if you don't want to have a baby", I said, hoping to completely put him off. No such luck.

"But how?"

"You'll have to ask Daddy when we get home", I said, resorting to a line I never thought I'd use! Before I took up step-parenting, that is.

So, that evening he asked George. George said George Junior didn't need to know everything about sex.

My approach was almost as mature. When George Junior said "but where do you put it?" I replied "on a banana!"

Where was I?

2007-01-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well, last you heard, editing. There was rather a lot of it to do before I went on holiday, so there I was, editing, editing, editing and then I went on holiday.

Since then, I've been relaxing, reading, playing games, fishing, eating and occasionally going to cafes, sometimes even internet cafes. Right now I'm blogging from the house of one of my invisible friends (a stranger off t'internet! gasp!) who is lovely, as are all the people I've met off the internet).

We had a few days on Stewart Island, twas lovely. This was a holiday from our holiday for George as he has been doing lots of outdoors work at our down-South house while I've been in charge of George junior. We've been boogie boarding, visiting the horse up the road, going out for icecream and into town to the movies (we've seen Happy Feet and Open Season) amongst all the game playing - today he insisted on getting out the Scrabble, even though he didn't know what it was. I had to make all his words for him as well as mine. He still thought he won.)

I'd better go home and cook dinner now. Deadlines, deadlines...

Picking words off, one by one

2006-12-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

~~It is important to~~ remember ~~the fact~~ that ~~in order~~ to be understood, you ~~writing~~ needs to be write clearly ~~written~~.

"What are you doing?", asks George junior, watching me crossing out words and scribbling in the margins of the top piece of my stack of paper.

"This is what I do for my work. I'm fixing this writing," I said.

"But what are you writing?"

"Well, I'm crossing out the dumb words and writing better ones. It's called editing - that's what my work is, I'm an editor."

"That kind of sounds like predator", said he.

"Hmm. Do you know what a predator does?"

"Kills people."

"Do you think that's what I do for my work?"

"No."

"No. I just kill words."

By The Preditter

I am a touch typist

2006-12-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

I typed this Bircher Muesli recipe out from my sister's recipe book without looking at the screen.

2 Tb oatflakes soaked overnight in warter or fruite juice (eg pineapple)

1 apple or firm pear, grated

handful soaked raisins

1/2 lemon

2 Tb plain yoghurt

1 Tb minced nuts

1 tsp honey, cinnamon or ginger

Soak otat and raisins overnight in a lettle water or juice. Combine wiht applie, squeeze of lemon jice and hoghurt. Drizzle with honey if desired and sprinkle with nuts and cinnamon or ginger.

It's quite interesting to see what it's supposed to be, cos I make it without having referrred to the recipe since last summer. I soak my oats for 15-30 minutes in the morning in either soy milk or pineapple juice. I've never used pear, I can't imagine trying to grate a pear? At the moment I use grated apple and grapefruit segments (due to abundance of grapefruit from my parents' tree). I do not use raisins (blech!) I use heaps of ground almonds (protein, baby) and instead of cinnamon I often use nutmeg or cardamom.

Nyam nyam.

On How Life Is

2006-12-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

"Shall I make you a coffee?", asked George this morning. He meant a nocaf, as seen in the picture. "No", I said, "I'm gonna get my coffee machine back out and make me a real one."

"You're going from one extreme to the other", he said, "after all your good work!"

Well. In the picture you can see not only the juxtaposition of my espresso machine and the Whole Earth organic Nocaf, but also of my "Elevit pre-pregnancy and pregnancy care multivitamins" that I've been using for the last month (I've been on folic acid for more than a year now!) and the tampons, currently in use in this household. That explains the coffee. And the wine. And the reversal of my announcement that I'd be the sober driver for the party we're going to tonight. Nothing explains the lemon - I will in a minute, though.

I did actually give up coffee for at least a week, and I now drink a lot less than I used to. I drink a lot less alcohol than I used to, too. But tonight I'll probably drink a lot more than I'm used to. I was asking a woman in my bookclub if she was still seeing her man. She spent a while screwing up her face and making non-commital noises before looking at me and saying "no". I said it sounded like my relationship with coffee. "So he's your man a couple of times a week now instead of all the time?" She said yes straight away to that!

The running hasn't progressed past once a week (and I didn't run last week at all), but I learnt from flying kiwi's blog that it takes 3 weeks to form a habit, so I've still got time before Christmas to get that up and running more than once a week! I've just finished a course, and while it wasn't too hard, it did take time that I didn't really have. I'm glad it's over. I have just gone and retrieved a "2 weeks for $20" gym voucher for what I thought was a gym down the road, but it's not!

So there you go, my life is ambivalent. I don't drink, apart from when I do. And I don't drink coffee, apart from when I do. I don't buy lemons, cos I'm allowed to help myself from Eugene's tree. That's my last lemon in the photo, but I'm not sure I really can go help myself to more. Last time George junior and I went over to retrieve his ball, I asked if I could get a couple of lemons. "Only a couple?" said Eugene, "you take as many as you like!" He came over and I noted that he'd put a lock on the gate leading to the neighbour-on-the-other-side's property. "Oh yes", said Eugene. "They were coming and helping themselves to my lemons! I don't mind if they ask, but I don't like it if they just sneak in and help themselves. So I put a lock on". I didn't want to turn and see if he'd put a lock on the gate on our side too, but he probably has - I've certainly gone in that back gate to help myself a couple of times, like he told me to! As we went back to our house with our lemons, George junior said to me "but he said we could get lemons any time we wanted to, eh Georgia?"

So that one lemon represents just one more "do I or don't I?" conundrum in my life.

Y tu mama tambien!

2006-11-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

"So, Mummy's my mummy, and Daddy's my daddy, but what are you?"

"Well, I'm kind of like your stepmother."

"What's a stepmother?"

"Well, you know in fairytales how there are wicked stepmothers?"

"But you're not wicked!"

Well, that depends whose perspective you're looking at it from, boy.

My lovely cousin was down from Auckland to see her new niece. We tried to go out for dinner on her last night here before I took her to the airport but everything was closed on a Monday so we ended up with Hell pizza in the car, parked up at the beach. She asked me if I've met George junior's mother properly yet. Nope, I said. She said if it was her, she'd want to know the other woman. I said that's what all my friends who are mothers have said.

Sometimes I start to try and understand things from her perspective, but I can't get past how she so doesn't have George junior's best interests at heart. One of my friends, a teacher, says she is a bad influence on George junior. In many ways, I agree, but I would never go so far as to think she shouldn't be in his life. I know that it's in his best interests and that he benefits from it.

It could be better, it could definitely be better. Us not talking at all is fucking ridiculous after I've been living with her son for a year and a half. It must affect him - God knows what she says to him about me. But it's so much better now than it was last year, so I just want to hold onto the progress we've made. If only she wasn't hellbent on undoing it all already.

She wants George junior to change to the school she teaches at next year. George won't agree. It would suit her better, obviously, cos she wouldn't have to drive him across to one school and then get to another, and she wouldn't have to pick him up from after school care. George said "but he's happy at his school!" and she said he'd be even happier at her school. You don't take chances with a child's education like that! As my teacher friend said, it's always the Maori kids who get moved from school to school and suffer for it.

Anyway, she and George have an agreement (that cost us a lot of money (and time and stress)) to get to, and he shouldn't be made to go through her doing everything she can think of to try and get him to agree to changing it. He pointed out that would be very difficult for us having to drive over to the other school every morning when his one is round the corner (from both parents, I might add). She said we could drop him off at her house at 7.30 every morning. He said we only get George junior up at 7.30 (sometimes later!) It would be bad enough having to go to her house after work every day to pick him up without having to go there in the mornings too! George doesn't want to see her every day and I don't want to have to sit outside in the car all the bloody time either! She says her job is permanent (of course, this is the third "permanent" situation she's been in since I've been on the scene) but both George and I know that if she got him into her school she wouldn't stay living over this way and it would be us (the fools who bought in this area because of his school) who would end up driving hours extra every week. She then started running down his school and the teachers there, and even the families of his friends there.

George says it makes him feel sick. It's not just this, it's where it would lead - we wouldn't know what was going on at his school, if she moved schools, then what? You know what else she did? She took him on her school's day trip without letting George know. Oh it was fun, of course George junior loved it, as he said "because I didn't have to go to school!" You can't just take kids out of school because you feel like it! Oh, and of course his mother said "but I've asked him and he wants to change to my school." Right. Because a 7 year old understands the implications of that. Just like when she told us when he was 5 that she knew he wanted to live with her because she'd asked him. As the Counsel for the Child told us before the almost-court-case last year, of course a child will say yes to those questions, because they genuinely do want to live with mummy/go to mummy's school. But they just as equally want to go to their current school and live with daddy - it's totally inappropriate to ask them such questions.

"See you in court!" was her parting shot. "Daddy, what's court?" George junior asked him. Yep, she was yelling and threatening in front of her son. And just what does she think going to court would do? They now have joint custody. Is a judge suddenly going to award her full custody? Or order that he change schools? He is happy, he is settled, why can't she see that and be satisfied that things are good for her son?

When George first told me her evil plans, I cried. I feel totally invisible in her eyes. While I've said before that it suits me not to have a relationship with her, I can see how well it suits her to not acknowledge my part in her son's life at all. When George said to her months ago how much more settled George junior is now, she said yes, he'd improved dramatically since she'd been back on the scene. As if it wasn't totally because of all our hard work to mitigate the effects of her craziness! I think she knows now that I'm not the screaming, swearing, child-abusing monster she made me out to be in her affadavits, but she doesn't want to know what a good relationship I have with her son, what good friends we are, what a good job I'm doing of parenting him. And if she got to know me she might have to acknowledge that in some small way.

Is that it? Is it fear? Whatever it is, I still think we've got a loooooong way to go before we're all in this parenting thing together.

Hot 'n' Spicy!

2006-11-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

We have just ~~endured~~ enjoyed a visit from my sister in Bangkok who comments here as "Hot'n'Spicy Kiwi". She brought preserved mangos, lollies that she said were banana but appear to be nut toffee, balancing tea and Peking grass cookies that say they contain whole wheat floor, as well as leafs and stems of Leng Ju Chao. I shall now tell you whether they are indeed the delicious herbal cookies they say they are. Hmm, they don't taste at all herbal, even though they look like they're made of grass:
She had a conference to go to but came the weekend before to hang out with us, yay! On Friday night we took the last of our fireworks to the beach, to George junior's delight (it had rained or winded every day since we'd let off the first lot the weekend before). Saturday we had rellies over for lunch. My uncle, when I opened the door to him, said: "you're looking slim!" Me: "that's cos you haven't seen Hot'n'Spicy yet! Her, later: "he didn't even say anything when he saw me!" She is about half the width of me, I asked George to take a photo of our waists side by side but he wasn't paying me any heed, as usual. When he offered to the next day I decided it wasn't such a good idea after all.

Saturday night we went to more rellies for dinner. Hot'n'Spicy picked up one of those foil-wrapped chocolate coins and said "I didn't even know NZ had new coins now". Cousin spent the rest of the evening asking everyone if they'd heard that Hot'n'Spicy thought we have chocolate money here now.

Sunday we saw more rellies - another sister, even! Flying kiwi managed a flying visit on her way back home from a conference down south. And we all went straight from the airport to the house of more rellies, where there was a new baby. I had said to George I wasn't sure how I'd be with the baby, but I was fine. I'd been to our neighbour's baby shower the previous weekend but I don't know her very well so didn't mind the baby talk or the stranger-babies there, but wasn't sure what it would be like with a baby whose parents I'm close to. (George junior thought the baby shower was unnecessary, he said they could just put the baby under a tap.)

I'm sure Hot'n'Spicy's kids will be delighted to have her home. The day before she flew here she got home from work and her son asked if she had presents. She had to explain she hadn't even left yet, let alone got back!

A new superhero!

2006-11-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

I'm The Hulk! announces George junior, striking a pose.

No, no, I'm Roma Stereo! (Rey Mysterio, of WWF fame).

Suddenly, he thinks of the best superhero of all - I'm Ninja Cockle B!!!

We cracked up. Why would the name Meningococcal B conjure up anything menacing when the image in his head is made up of the following:

Body Oddy Odd Bod

2006-10-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

I've started reading a couple of weight-loss blogs - well, I was reading a miscarriage story on what had started out being a weight-loss blog, and then discovered a ring of weight-loss blogs all linked to each other. It hadn't really occured to me that there would be this whole genre of blogs just about losing weight, but of course it totally makes sense. All that built-in support - journalling, planning, tracking progress, positive comments and an online community of supportive friends.

I was reading Philippa's post earlier about how she felt so free doing all the things they did on her beach holiday in New Zealand, how she wouldn't have been able to do half of them if she was still 103 kg (she's lost 30). Her exuberance at how life is for her now just absolutely shines through - and she takes every chance to pose in her bikini and Daisy Duke denim shorts.

Body confidence is so attractive and yet so rare.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except maybe to drag my old (odd) body for a lie-down. Because, while writing this, I've polished off the leftovers from the lunch I put on for 5 girlfriends. This included chocolate, cheese, icecream and wine (I know, I know - they should've taken it with them!). The lunch also included pasta with mondo bizarro sauce and salad, but I didn't polish those off.

Too Much Coffee Man

2006-10-27T03:20:00.000-07:00

I have given up coffee.

Too Much Coffee Man taunts me...

Here's a conversation I had with my sister:

me: I've given up coffee!

her: how long has it been?

me: today's my first day!

her: how many coffees have you had today?
[ed: ah, she knows me well]

me: two!

her: how many do you usually have?

me: one!

her: I see...

But it's been a week now, with nary a coffee. Actually, I had my first ever decaf yesterday, only cos I was going into a 3-hr meeting where I was to be sat next to an inviting plunger full of coffee. No more decaf though, I don't drink coffee for the taste, I drink it for the caffeine! And now that I know what decaf tastes like, I don't believe people who say they drink it cos they like the taste of coffee.

It was harder to give up than alcohol. I don't have alcohol at all in the 2WW - 2-week-wait, i.e. after ovulation until you find out whether you're pregnant or not - but I have had a couple of glasses before ovulation since I "gave up". Whereas coffee being a daily fix, I don't think I could have some and then not again. I know this cos of the 2 weeks it took me to give up! Every day I'd think "this is my last coffee, I'll enjoy it". I enjoyed a week's worth of "last" coffees, they were lovely! It was a long weekend last weekend, full of rain and cafes. And no coffee. And headaches. From one, sometimes two, a day! Real ones, though. Espressos and soy lattes.

I've never been a tea drinker, so will not be trying Violet's 2-teabag trick. I've gone straight to herbal teas, and then only one a day, if any.

This from The Natural Way to Better Babies, which I got off Violet when I gave back Up the Duff:

Caffeine has harmful effects on all aspects of reproductive health. It adversely affects the way in which sperm move forward, and it can cause reduced fertility in women as well. It is known that the ingestion of caffeine at mealtimes affects nutritional status by inhibiting the absorption of iron. Reports have also linked caffeine consumption to chromosome damage, and in animal experiments it has been shown to have a number of adverse effects on two succeeding generations. Furthermore, its ingestion during pregnancy has been associated with an increased rate of spontaneous abortion and with a number of congenital abnormalities.

So it's an evil, evil drug. However, if I get my period again, I will most likely be found with an espresso in one hand and a glass of wine in the other...

Sorry seems to be the hardest word...

2006-10-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

George junior is so settled and happy compared with where we were a year ago that when he throws a wobbly now (which is hardly ever) it almost seems not worth worrying about.

We've just had Labour weekend, and I reminded George that last Labour weekend we were writing affadavits. And trying to guide a little boy through a very scary time in his life when we going through a hell of a time ourselves. He wasn't eating, he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't behaving.

Last night I was going to cook him fishfingers, but he said he was going to be brave and try the salmon fillets I'd just grilled. He had asked me earlier what smelled so good and at that stage all I was cooking was rice. He said "I LOVE rice! Can I have some? Pleeease?" And then during dinner (which for him was just rice, salmon and broccoli, but for us included grilled mushrooms and asparagus) he said "this is a yummy dinner!" (and it was brown rice!)

But then he wanted to go on the computer and I said he needed to wash his hands first (he'd been eating with his fingers - I don't fight that too much, at least he eats now!) Well lately he's been doing this thing of not doing what he's asked, not coming when called - stalling, basically. It's so annoying. I asked him at least 4 times and George said "George junior! Listen! Georgia has asked you to go and wash your hands!" at which George junior turned to me and did a big raspberry in my face, spitting on me. George asked him to say sorry but he wouldn't, so George took him to his room.

He told him he could come out when he was ready to say sorry, but George junior said he wouldn't till the morning. After a while (where George was playing Pacxon) he went and got George junior and brought him to me to say sorry. George junior pretended he was asleep. He was all floppy-limbed. George handed him to me and I went down to the floor with him in my arms and asked him gently to say sorry. He still had his eyes closed but I saw a sly grin and knew he had no intention of saying sorry. I don't know what George's plan was - he says he wasn't going to let him get away with not saying sorry, but how?

I put George junior in the laundry, not so warm and comfortable as his bed. I said I'd leave him in there 7 minutes and then see if he was ready to say sorry. After 3 lots of 7 minutes he was still doing his floppy-limbed eyes closed thing, and then he did his little sly smile again. So then I said I'd come back in 7 more minutes but if he still wasn't ready to say sorry then I'd put him under the house (in the basement).

When I went back in he was standing up, no longer pretending to sleep. His eyes were brimming with tears and his bottom lip was trembling. I asked him to say sorry. He said nothing. I asked if he wanted to go under the house. He shook his head no, his lip pouting. I said I'd leave him in the laundry one more time to think about it, and that I'd be back in 7 minutes.

I told George (still on the computer) what I'd done, pointing out that I would never actually put him under the house. George asked if he should go in and I said no, I was sure he'd say sorry now. Sure enough, when I went back in, I got a trembling "SOWWY!" and then I sent George in to get him.

Well, if he held a grudge against me for it you'd never have known. He went straight onto the computer, let us get him peaches and yoghurt for dessert and was being loud and happy again almost immediately. And this morning he was his usual self. ("When you go to heaven, if you want bread, you just open your mouth and bread comes. And then you can go 'icecream!' and icecream will come. It will be AMAZING, eh Georgia?") and letting me make him hot chocolate and tie his shoelaces.

I told George I knew I was tough on him ("you are tough!" he said) but I repeated my assertion that kids push the boundaries every now and then because they need to know the boundaries are still there. I don't think he'll try me again like that in a hurry.

However, I do hope he doesn't tell his mother that I locked him in the basement... eek!

babbling French fish

2006-10-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have some francophone friends I speak franglais with. This bit (from a while ago) I translated from the French using babelfish:

and you with dimensions heart which is your current buddy? a beautiful intellectual with the insane charm, or a maori straightforwardly cracking intelligent and also charming

And the one below is a very sweet farewell email from a different friend, not translated - this is exactement how she wrote it:

Dear Dear Dear you all,

First THANK YOU, for everything, your kindness, your patience and understanding! Waw!
Before leaving Wellington on Sunday morning
Because it is so good to leave some people, some country, some things you really deeply like and love
It makes you feel very alive
The cherry on the top...
It is time to say goodbye to you, my Wellingtonian family
For now.
And share, only if you have time,
A happy farewell drink at the [...] bar, around 5.30 or 6 on Friday the 20th
If i do not see you, let me send you some warm and sincere and only good greetings, wishes, thoughts til the next time!

A plus tard...

Lovely, hein?

My evil sloth Sid

2006-10-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Thomas Hardy, apparently. (It was today's quote in my diary.)

The weather is warming up to the point where I have, on a couple of occasions, attempted to wear things I wore last summer. And have had to return them to the hanger/drawer until such time as my resolve has banished the evil that is stopping me from fitting them.

My evil is sloth. I watched Ice Age on TV the other night with George junior, and I think I'll name my evil sloth Sid. I just tried to say "evil sloth" fast 5 times.

And I made my resolution before I realised quite how advanced my evil was - I started running weeks ago. Just as bloody well, otherwise I'd have an even more daunting task ahead of me. With just over 10 weeks till Christmas, I think that's a fair target.

Last summer's clothes by Christmas.

I think I need a lie down.

Harold Be Thy Name

2006-10-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

George junior was prostrating himself in prayer pose on the bed between George and me, up on his knees, eyes closed, hands clasped in front of him, then face down on the bed, then back up again. I started chanting a faux-Muslim prayer, then a less-faux-Hari Krishna one, then Our Father Which Art in Heaven, Harold Be Thy Name.

George looked at me.

"Lots of kids think God's name is Harold because of 'Harold Be Thy Name'", I said.

George junior popped up and opened his eyes. "His name is Philip", he said.

"What?", I asked, incredulous.

"God's name is Philip", he said, in all seriousness.

It transpired that he was translating Hohepa as Philip, even though Hohepa is Joseph, not Jesus. He's got a lot of gods to keep track of. He's asked us before who is the strongest out of Jesus, Jehovah and Ranginui.

And now there's Philip, too.

Baggage Handler

2006-10-06T01:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about me, but some people seem to see a "Baggage Handler" stamp on me when I walk past.

I know receptionists have particularly boring jobs. And I know everyone needs to offload their baggage sometimes.

But what is it about me that makes receptionists throw their baggage at me as I walk past without so much as a "here, catch!"

I take a parcel to reception. She's sitting behind her desk texting. "Do I put this here?" I ask.

"I'm not getting any benefits", she says.

"Sorry?" I say. She repeats herself. I stare at her, uncomprehending, shaking my head slightly.

"That's what I'm texting", she says.

I wonder vaguely if she's been on some kind of benefit scam that has now been found out. I can see I'm not going to get away with just walking away. I sigh. "Who are you texting?" I say, in an exasperated kind of a way. Nonetheless, she is encouraged. "My friend", she says. Ah, the married one she met at work, I assume. She hasn't told me, but must've rightly assumed I'd heard about it. But wrongly that I cared! "What kind of a response do you expect from that?" I ask, and walk off.

Back at my desk, I get a call from reception. "I need to know how to say 'I need some TLC' in French". "Does he speak French?" I ask, surprised. "No", she says, "but I want to sound mysterious." She gets an incoming call - "I'll ring you back", she says to me. Oh joy.

At an earlier job, I was walking past reception with my lipstick, before a meeting. "Oh, are you a smoker?" asks the receptionist. Wha-? She points at my lipstick. "That's my lipstick", I say. "Oh", she says, "I thought it was a ciggie case". She looks expectant. "No", I say, "it's lipstick." I wonder if I can go. "I'm supposed to be giving up", she says, "cos we're trying to have a baby".

Right. And I just want to put my lipstick on before my meeting.

Is it just me? Or does this kind of thing happen to you too?

low maintenance

2006-09-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

Spring has such a zizzy name, it makes you feel springy and zingy just saying it. Printemps sounds softer and gentler, but either way it means summer is on its way! (Heh. I've been reading about you northern hemisphere bloggers heading into autumn and don't feel sorry for you one bit!)

It means lots of weeding and watering in the garden. And lots of grooming now that things are on show again - I've painted my toenails and waxed my legs for the one day so far I've been without tights. I keep telling George how lucky he is that I'm not a high-maintenance chick. I don't shave cos I'd have to do it every day. I certainly don't wax in winter. I've been to the hairdresser twice this year, although have dyed my hair myself in between. Not often enough though - was prompted into doing it last week after a friend at work asked if she could ask a personal question, then knelt in front of me, took my hands in hers and asked in a low (and hopeful!) voice if the fact that I hadn't dyed my hair meant anything.

"Apart from that I'm lazy? No." I said. (Not only are you not supposed to dye your hair when pregnant, but in Maori culture [the friend is Maori] you also don't cut it.)

I hardly ever wear makeup. The clothes I have that need ironing hardly get worn. I've used my hair straighteners three times. If I turn up to work with makeup and formally dressed, I get asked if I've got an interview!

Which is why, when I turned up to a work party in fancy dress and makeup, no-one recognised me.

Priorities

2006-09-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

I had it all planned out, you know.

I bought the computer so I could internet date and start a blog.

I started the blog so I could build up a community of like-minded friends I could interact with when I was at home with the baby.

I internet dated to meet the man I'd have the baby with.

Everything went according to plan. Actually everything felt better when it happened than when I'd planned it. I had in some way felt I was doing a duty by planning things the way I did. That the process was mechanical so I wouldn't feel the same joy as if it had "just happened". But of course planning doesn't make it happen. It just makes you prepared for what might happen. I felt happy and excited, but also able to cope with whatever happened.

I knew it might not work out. But I didn't let it just happen - I exercised all my judgment in choosing my man, my blogging community. And of course there's luck. I know was lucky with George. And so lucky to get pregnant, I'm even more aware of that since I miscarried and haven't got pregnant again. And I didn't just meet George to have a baby with. But that was part of the plan. A part that nearly happened. Being prepared meant I knew that being pregnant was just the beginning, I already knew 1 in 4 pregnancies does not result in a live birth. Of course I'm disappointed it didn't happen. It would've been so perfect! But life isn't perfect and neither am I. Things are not always going to go our way.

So, what's the plan now? Well, some things have already changed. I wanted to buy a house, and we were looking before I miscarried, but I don't think we would've bought this house if I'd still been pregnant. We would've been going down to one income soon and it would've been really tight really quick. We're fine now, and if I do get pregnant we'll cope a lot better than if I'd had the baby already. (And I just would have!)

We now have a house of our own, a room for the baby, and the certainty of 2 incomes for at least 8 months. And George junior is well settled. He would've been fine anyway, but I feel far more secure in relation to him and his mother than I did when I got pregnant.

But the way things are now, I don't have time to blog! That's a challenge for me. In some ways the blog is the last thing on my list of priorities - and of course work and family have to come first. But at the moment it's hard to get time for anything else. My aunty reckons hardly any teachers would blog as they wouldn't have time. If time was the criteria I wouldn't blog. The reason I started blogging is the reason I'm still here, even though sometimes it's just by the seat of my pants. It was a priority on my plan. I no longer have the reason, but it's there now. Things change, plans change, priorities change. Things become important for reasons you couldn't have foreseen. I wish I could talk about work cos there's lots I could say in relation to my plan and things changing, but what happened to petite has made me resolute.

Anxious' posts about how to be a popular blogger and commenting policy have made me do a lot of thinking about what my blog is and isn't. I have an ambivalent relationship to my blog - I haven't got the time for it to be the way I'd planned, but I'm committed to blogging. I said I was going to learn some html, personalise my banner, but never have. I'm a procrastinator. As evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this post while on study leave.

I think I've got some more planning to do. Planning on how I deal with the changes in plans. How I deal with change. How I change. I'm already changing - will soon be going for my 5th run since I wrote about exercise 3 weeks ago. I know that's not much, but I wasn't running at all, and now I'm running every week. I'll let you know how I go with my alterations. But right now, study is my priority!

Spingtime!

2006-09-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

clematis, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

This is a native clematis that we were given for our housewarming. I think it's breathtakingly gorgeous. George built the little rockery - twice, in fact! The first time in front of the bottlebrush that wound its roots round and round inside our drainpipe and again when he chopped that tree down and moved the clematis to this other tree. The one that got chopped down was only an Australian tree, I would've been much sadder had it been a NZ native.

It's very exciting to be in a new garden for spring, referred to as sping ever since the discovery of a poem called Lames in the Spingtime, written by a friend's young sister. Besides the title, I can only remember the first line:

Little lames, hoping and biping in the fields...

Anyway, with all the other antipodeans posting their lovely springtime photos, I thought I'd add some I've just taken of our garden. The rain that threatened last weekend stayed away, so all the grass got weedeaten, yay!

These photos show more housewarming-present-plants:

One shows one of the 3 ti kouka (cabbage trees) we were given. George had already planted a little $10 one when we were given much bigger and better ones. George junior didn't witness the replanting and said "I looked out my window and I could see that tree got heaps bigger!" (in a week, wow!)

The other shows a kakabeak and bay tree (kakabeak in front and bay tree behind it to the left). I said to gardener-neighbour "and what do I do with this little plant?" and she said "don't think little plant, think big tree!"

The exhausted mouse.

2006-09-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

I went to see a play the other night in which a character tells the story of the time his parents were fighting, and the father put a potato in the exhaust pipe. When the mother revved the car the potato popped out. The father caught it, and seeing as it had been perfectly grilled, popped it in his mouth and ate it.

It reminded me of a story I heard a few years ago.

Emma had a pet mouse that, sadly, got cancer. The vet advised her that a humane way to put the mouse out of its misery was to pop it in a paper bag and affix the mouth of the bag to her car's exhaust pipe with a rubber band. Then turn the engine on and let the motor run for a minute and the fumes would gently put the mouse to sleep.

Emma decided she would like to do this for her mouse. She went to the car in the garage and did the preparatory work. Unfortunately, no sooner was the bag affixed to the exhaust pipe, when the mouse ran out of the bag and into the pipe.

Oops.

No amount of coaxing would get it out. Emma decided to go ahead with the original plan, and put the paper bag back over the exhaust pipe. She turned the engine on... but revved harder than she'd intended and the mouse whooshed into the bag, the bag whooshed off the exhaust pipe, and bag and mouse slammed into the (closed) garage door.

Not quite the gentle end intended for poor mousie.

Treasure Island Cake

2006-09-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

birthday 011, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

Bake a round cake. Cut out rectangular piece from centre of cake. Insert kitkat bars down each long side, and half kitkat bars (carefully sawed with serrated sharp knife) down the shorter sides. Use one kitkat bar as open lid of treasure chest. Fill chest with m&ms and chocolate coins. (or real coins if you discover the warehouse only sells the chocolate ones at Easter - wtf?) Spoon blue or green jelly around outside of cake.

Overcoming Odds

2006-08-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

I just had a WeightWatchers Raspberry Pie bar. "Pie" sounds good, but it's WeightWatchers, so must be healthy. And Raspberry, yum! I wouldn't've bought them except I needed some kind of bar snack things to have in my drawer at work to keep me from buying muffins and slices. And these were on special. And seemed they would fulfil the criteria of being healthy and delicious.

So disappointed.

Healthy? The second ingredient is sugar and it's only 16% fruit.

Delicious? Hell, no!

I know, I should just make my own healthy and delicious bars, but I've only just nailed the making my own lunches every day thing and am still forming the exercising every day habit. I don't want to try to do too much at once or I'll never sustain it.

I would never do WeightWatchers. It's great for people who eat "normal" food, I don't. I hardly ever eat sandwiches or cereal. I mostly make meals from scratch, don't like using too much processed stuff. Hardly use packets. Which is why the buying muesli bars thing goes against the grain, but it's better (healthier and cheaper) than muffins, so as an interim step it'll work!

I found some notes today that I took while watching one of Tony Robbins' infomercials(!):

The only way to feel good is to do things that are very difficult for you. Your esteem doesn't come from achieving , it comes from overcoming odds.
Do a little bit every day, get that momentum.
Settling will never make you happy.
Taking action will get you somewhere.

I like how you grab hold of certain ones, my sister's "exercise is 90% mental and 10% physical" and Nyx's husband's "just do it".

Have you got sayings you find yourself repeating? (I can't get rid of "sweat is water soluble", which, admittedly is handy if the soap dispenser is empty in the gym showers...)

The Cure for Itchy Feet

2006-08-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

I just spent 20 minutes on the trampoline. It wasn't fatigue that finished me, it was frozen tootsies. I had to jump barefoot, as it was raining. I was jumping in a wee puddle ("wee", here, is an adjective, in case anyone thought otherwise), so no wonder they froze. I was wearing my raincoat and beanie. It has been continuously raining all day. Walkingbuddy and I only got to do the coffee part of our walk. She reckons the coffee tastes better after a walk. Coffee always tastes good to me.

The walking is part of my new regime to get my fitness (and my figure) back. I do a big walk each weekend (2 last weekend) and small walks throughout the week, 45 mins powerriding 3x a week, weights 3x a week. And now trampolining as well, it's good for my asthma too, according to badaunt. George had starting giving me a hard time about my lack of exercise, he believes me now that it wasn't laziness on my part.

I've been pretty fit for a lot of my adult life, and sometimes really fit. I think there were good reasons for my recent backsliding. For a start, I never recovered from the Christmas excess seeing as I went straight to a wedding and a summer holiday full of BBQs, fish & chips and icecream, during which I got pregnant. (Not during the actual wedding, you understand). And once pregnant, you can't diet and you can't eat lots of things you'd normally eat, so you end up justifying fish & chips on the grounds of food-safety. And you're so tired that if you work full time that's about all you can handle.

I gave up the gym, due to pregnancy and moving. And rejoining doesn't make sense as I'd be paying more, I still want to get pregnant (in which case I wouldn't be gymming for long) and I don't know anymore when I'd get there. It used to suit me so well, but my needs have changed. I used to go at lunchtimes. Most lunchtimes, actually. And I ran or walked to work, biked, did yoga and swam. I can still do all those other things, it's just not as easy as going to the gym. Harder-earned and therefore more worth it?

George reckons he can feel my muscles already. I have reminded him of 2 things: that I can be very disciplined; and that I lost a baby. He said he had been getting frustrated. He thought I was full of excuses, when I was just taking the time I needed. I know very well how much time I need, I'm very in tune with this old body of mine, after everything we've been through together.

And I'm pretty adaptable and flexible. It's just a matter of working out what works for me now.

And the itchy feet? I put my thick socks and felted slippers on as soon as I got inside from the trampoline, but my feet immediately started itching like billyo. I fixed them with a vigorous rubdown with a towel.

I have metaphorical itchy feet, too. Once a traveller, always a traveller. Being pregnant fixed those itchy feet and, more importantly, was to be my way out of being trapped in a cubicle. Portuguesa Nova suggested in her comment box that it's a modern take on Cinderella, that we now use marriage and babies to escape the drudgery of cubicle life.

I've been reading a book on Downshifting, which is sort of about downshifting your job but is really about downshifting your lifestyle. Which is exactly what we need to do as new homeowners. But that combined with trying to get fit and trying to get pregnant feels like I've given up all the fun bits: travel, eating out, takeaways, shopping and alcohol. With the possibility that we'll still never pay the house off or have a baby. (Although, not having one of those is more likely if we have the other). And I can be fit and healthy regardless of what else happens or doesn't happen.

So, the cure for itchy feet doesn't have to be travel in the literal sense, it can be traveling a different path. Even a well-rambling one like this blogpost!

Pupu Springs

2006-08-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

The real Pupu Springs, near Nelson, are crystal clear with the best visibility in the world. You're not allowed to swim in them but can dive for 15 minutes.

The Pupu Springs at our house would have been best undiscovered.

I was returning home with my modem in my arms, after another unsuccessful attempt to get our broadband working (3 phonecalls to techsupport later, it now is, yay!). As I came up the path George junior was yelling in excitement.

"Georgia! Georgia! We had an EXPLOSION!!!"

George was giggling with a combination of amusement and embarrassment. He was still giggling that night. Apparently, when the drain guys unblocked our drains with their machine, there was a sudden geyser and one of them had to stand on the drain cover to try and contain it. There he was in his yellow plastic overalls with pupu springs shooting up either side of him, George junior yelling "WAY-HEEEEYYY!!", and the neighbours, who had been enjoying brunch on their deck, coming to peer over the fence to see what all the fuss was about. George told me George junior then started going "do it AGAIN! do it AGAIN!"

Ah well, I suppose for the drain guys every day has the potential to be a shit of a day...

tooth fairy tale

2006-08-18T01:05:00.000-07:00

George's cousin Matiu has a gold tooth. When we saw him down south, George junior was very taken with the gold tooth. He kept asking Matiu to smile and show him. He told us when he grows up, he'll have lots of gold teeth.

George junior is coming up 7 years old and will soon be a gappy-toothed boy. The other night he put his finger at the back of his teeth.

"When I get bigger, I'll have teeth there, eh?" he asks.

"Yep", I say.

"That's where my gold teeth will grow, eh?"

Unplanned parenthood

2006-08-11T02:09:00.000-07:00

"So, tell me honestly, what does Georgia think of me?"

"Well, she doesn't like you, cos you accused her of child abuse!"

"I'd do the same again."

Right. She'd do the same again. Not consider talking to George first. Or meeting me. Or working out what might be really going on for her son. Or for her.

Since George told me about the above conversation, I haven't given much thought to her. I was worried for a long time about the effect she might have on my relationship with George junior, but by her own actions she has removed her own power. Really, the worst thing she has done is cause me to have no respect for her.

I tell you though, her accusing me of child abuse made me determined to be the best parent I can to George junior. I hope I would've anyway, but when you've had to watch your words and actions knowing they could be examined in court, you get practice at wise, aware parenting. I wasn't always sure about what I was doing, there were as many tears and sleepless nights on my part as there were on George junior's.

But it's becoming clearer and clearer that we did get it right, that all our hard work has paid off. He's a different little boy. He's happy and untroubled. And guess what his mother said about that? "He's much better since I came back". I asked George if he let her get away with that statement. Of course he did, the way she is now (not crazy) is so much better for her son, that's what really matters.

He still gets angry, but he handles it so much better now. The other night when he'd played a computer game too long and was at a level too hard for him, instead of bashing the computer and crawling behind the table or sofa he said "I'm getting angry. I'm going to bed". He went to his room, we left him to cool off in his own way, and 5 mins later he came back having changed into his pyjamas by himself and asked me to play Connect 4 with him. I was so impressed. There was an in-between stage (between the all out couldn't-get-near-him raging tantrum and the sorting it out himself) where I'd managed to talk him round a couple of times and get him back on task (eating). Sometimes it's still a struggle to get him to eat (well, he'll always eat pies and icecream, but they're no longer on the daily menu - in fact I thought I'd banned pies until I found a packet of 6 in the freezer. Apparently they were "good value".), but the eating battle is minor compared with sleeping battles of last year.

George was away down South for a couple of days when George junior was with his mother, but she txtd George to ask if we could have him one night. George checked with me, I said fine, he txtd her to say all sorted. When I got to after-school care George junior was standing at the door with his backpack on, grinning at me. We pulled up outside the video shop. "Where are we going?" he asked. "To the video shop", I said. "What for?" he asked. "I thought you might like a movie", I said. "Or a game?" he asked. AND I didn't make him eat vegetables with his dinner (spaghetti and meatballs). "You spoiled him", said George, later. "I like to spoil him too". "It was for my benefit, too", I said. "I was hoping the game would buy me some time." It did, some - apart from all the "Georgia! I got to the next level!" "Georgia! I want you to watch me!"

When we heard the taxi pull up outside, we pretended we were asleep. George took a while to come in, I found out later he'd been putting a weka under the house - a roadkill one that he's since plucked for the feathers and buried. He tiptoed into the room, and George junior and I each let out a loud fake snore, followed by giggles.

Of course, the only reason I've had time to write about parenting George junior is cos he isn't here at the moment. It's the best of both worlds for me, this shared parenting. When he's here, he gets attention from me at a level I couldn't sustain the whole time. And when he's not here we lie in, get stuff done on the house, go to cafes, get computer time.

It's a good life.

kitchen-related verbs

2006-08-06T02:11:00.000-07:00

I see flying kiwi's blogging bits of letters I wrote her, so I feel no qualms about blogging bits of old emails she sent me (that I was deleting, but saving blogfodderworthy bits from). I even stole the title of this post from the title of her email.

OK, so I'm reading America (The Book) - A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction and it has suggestions on what to call yourself in TV journalism. The one that caught my eye was sportscaster/weatherman - recommended formula = one-syllable kitchen-related verb + nonsensical multi-syllable compound, e.g. Flip Greencat, Dash Stedboat, Slice Carhat or Squirt Mudbottom.

The others are: Anchorman - one-syllable type of construction material + breed of horse (Brick Shetland, Chip Clydesdale, Stone Winchester, Wood Lippizaner); Women - Regular first name with pretentious misspelling + alliterative surname that sounds like a first name (Daran Davids, Mikhaela Michaels, Larra Leslees, Jennn Jonnnson); Hispanic - Name of Saint + Spanish curse word (Ignacio Cabron, Maria Pendejo, Francisco Tu Madre Es Una Puta Fea); Asian - Name of child from The Waltons + sound you make when struck in the solar plexus (Mary Ellen Huk, Ben Puh, John Boy Oh).

I think dash is actually a kitchen-related noun, but them's the peas.

networking

2006-07-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

tramp, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

It is good to keep in touch with old friends, even boys you secretly fancied a long time ago when you flatted with them but never told them cos they had a girlfriend and by the time they didn't anymore you had a boyfriend and by the time you didn't anymore they had just met someone but you didn't know, so you told them about all the secret fancying and it turns out they knew all along but even though it was embarrassing you stayed in touch and the someone they just met turned out to be lovely and all these years later they're still together and have 3 lovely children but have moved somewhere where the garden isn't big enough for their trampoline so isn't it lucky I kept in touch and happened to mention we were thinking about getting a trampoline for George junior? Here George is tying the safety mats on, and in a couple of hours Geroge junior comes home and will be over the moon. Or, if he jumps too high, over the fence and into Eugene's garden, which is a long way below ours...

by George

2006-07-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

veges, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

This is a photo of the vege garden George dug and planted. And of the wooden platform he fashioned to stand on to hang the clothes out. And the clothes hung out. And the camera strap, dangling...

Stop reading blogs and get back to work!

2006-07-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking, in a paranoid kind of way, about this blogging/working malarkey. What happened to Petite could happen to any of us. It wasn’t that she blogged from work – it wasn’t that that her bosses thought brought them into disrepute – it was, simply, that she blogged. It meant she was out of their control. Too big for her petite boots. (If only she hadn’t blogged from work, she made it easier for them.) A reader alerted me to a blog he reads, where a guy got fired for blogging from work. He’s now back, but not allowed to use the computer at work. Not a solution that would work for Petite. Nor for me. We’re (supposedly) allowed to use our computers for reasonable, personal use. I don’t know if reasonable has been defined or if that definition has been tested. But I do know some people have been told they were seen on certain sites. We’re also supposedly allowed to work flexible hours, as long as we do our hours and do our work. I’ve heard of many a thing that’s been said to people in defiance of this. Is it just to make sure we don’t push the boundaries too far? Are they being the firm parent? Do they have reason to behave like this to their employees? The right, even?

Am I just being paranoid? Should I just indulge in presenteeism (being seen to be at work when the boss is) and not do personal stuff at work? I resist that idea, because it seems obvious to me that the people who look like they’re working all the time are, in fact, just more covert. But mainly because I’m a good and responsible worker, and the fact that I check out some internet sites daily does not change that. There’s going to be no stopping the next waves of people entering the workforce from going on the internet for personal use, so workplaces had better gear up for dealing with it. Petite’s case will help in this – I’ll be reading her avidly, as ever.

In the meantime, if I comment on your post late, it’ll mean I’ll have read it in Bloglines from work, then commented once I’ve got home. The home part is about to get a whole lot easier for me – we’re getting Broadband, yay!

fired for blogging

2006-07-20T02:05:00.000-07:00

Petite Anglaise is the most famous blogger I read, but now she's infamous. It's been difficult getting onto her blog now that she's getting like 10,000 hits a day (over 1,000 viewers online at one point when she looked, she said). Here's her story how cnn told it.

She was fired because she was a blogger. Her employers said her blog brought the company into disrepute - nevermind that she never identified them nor herself. She did put a couple of (old) photos of herself up occasionally and they said that made her identifiable. They also complained that she blogged on work time and indeed she had done, when there was no other work to do.

I read every comment (up to 326 this afternoon) and many of the articles it linked to. The story has been picked up here, South Africa, Belgium, the Phillipines and I bet the rumours of a book deal are not just rumours. The majority of her commenters support her and are sure she'll win when she takes her employers to court. Many bloggers felt indignant - can our employers really stop us from expressing our thoughts freely? I follow the rules I've mentioned before: I don't blog from work and I don't blog about work. I also don't post photos of myself here. But I do read blogs from work - and as I read hers (and the comments, and all the connected articles) I knew I should tear my eyes away and get on with my work but I just couldn't!

I think her employers, who initially charged her with gross misconduct but have since removed that charge, seriously underestimated the situation. It will be an interesting one to watch unfold... (from my computer at home in my own time, of course).

What's the worst trouble you've got into from your blog? Mine was, as far as I know, that time early on, when I casually (and drunkenly) got the names of some characters from a book wrong - and then the author came on and corrected me.

How swarming are the bees

2006-07-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

04July 032-1, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

How swarming are the bees
Who swings flutter in the breeze
As word swallower mumbles
Lemons do not an apple crumble

That's the poem Dad composed and Mum wrote out on our housewarming card. George was reading it aloud and thought he'd got into the swing of it by the third line so read "mumblemons".

(Dad, aged 5, lined up to ask the teacher how to spell "smorning" for the story he was writing that began with "The smorning").

Our house was beautfully warmed yesterday, and what a wet, cold, grey day it was. Today it is sunny and calm and George said "we got the wrong day for our housewarming!" but I reckon it was better in the miserable weather, cos people came and people stayed! And the mulled wine went down very well indeed.

Nobody arrived till after 2 - I guess that's what you get when you say 1pm onwards. But once they started arriving, it seemed there was a knock at the door every 5 minutes. Antipo didn't have to knock, I was out on the doorstep calling "bonjour!" and telling Pauline I knew exactly who she was. As Antipo and I talked over top of each other I said to her "this is what bloggers have in common - we love to talk!" She agreed, saying blogging is a natural extension! I introduced her to everyone as a stranger off the Internet, and she'd elaborate by saying we fell in love online and now she's left her husband and come to NZ to be with me. And then something about not telling Stella... oops.

She wasn't the only blogger here either, Violet came with The Little Madam, who was anything but! She was so cute and quiet you'd never know the trouble she gives her parents. Wanda Harland invented a family party so she didn't have to come, but you get that sometimes.

George junior loved having Kevin and Pauline here, mostly they were on the X-Box but then hide and seek started up and you'd see a flash of child if you didn't blink. George junior thought it hilarious that Kevin's nickname is Keke (cake in Maori) and Popo is, I think, something rude.

So far today I've had French fruit flan (as seen in photo - which Antipo took, by the way - just as well seeing as I took none!), 2 chocolate eclairs and bacon and egg pie. There are still muttonbirds too (to left of punchbowl in photo).

And the lovely thing about combining a housewarming with a birthday party is that not only did we get lots of lovely trees and plants (we'd asked for stuff for the garden), but I also got massage vouchers and jewellery! Yay!!!

Lemony Snitchett

2006-07-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

13 lemon centrepiece, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

"Hey! What's your name again?"

"Georgia!" I call back, putting down my trowel and going over to the fence so that Eugene, our elderly Chinese neighbour, can hear me.

"Georgia, you help yourself to lemons, anytime! Don't buy lemons! Waste of money. I've got more than I can use."

"Thanks," I say. "I love lemons!"

I love them so much that I took Eugene at his word last time he told me to help myself to lemons anytime. George junior and I had been kicking a ball and I kicked it over the fence into Eugene's garden, so we both went over and knocked on his door. He told us to get lemons while we were retrieving the ball, and then on our way past his front door, both of us clutching lemons, he said anytime, anytime, just come over. So I did, a few days ago. He was out, but I just went through the back gate.

So yesterday, when he called me over to the fence clutching a bag of 13 lemons, I felt guilty for having snitched 6 just a few days earlier. Especially as I'd only used half a one since then. I've made Nana's lemon bar recipe tonight, that used 3 1/2. I think I'll be making lots more lemony things for our housewarming party on Saturday. It's lucky I really do love lemons, Antipo threatened to cut off our friendship if I didn't - and this before I've even met her!

There'll be lemony goodness everywhere. And if I can't be arsed baking, I can always go Jennifer Aniston one better and have a 13-lemon centrepiece, eh!

My name is Georgia

2006-07-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

I've finally thought of a pseudonym for myself (I found Editter jarred in reported speech).

I'm Georgia! I had never associated that name with George (I had thought of Georgette) - and now I can't recall whether Georgia existed as a name before it became popular to name girls after states. I don't think that would work so well here ("sit DOWN Nelson-Marlborough!).

New post coming, featuring the lovely George, the newly-baptised and glowing Georgia and the sweet but volatile George junior.

But first, we're off to a lunch featuring mulled wine.

I haven't had a drink for 3 weeks. That was pretty good going for me. I'll try harder next time. Still not pregnant - me not drinking has made a few people think I'm secretly pregnant. It bugs me a) that they think I wouldn't/couldn't give up drinking unless I was pregnant, b) that I wouldn't tell them if I was pregnant and c) that if I was pregnant but wasn't telling people, that them outing me would make me confess. I mean, how insensitive could you be to put someone in my position in that position. (Sorry, got my period. Feeling especially grumpy about that this month, as I would've liked to have been pregnant again before I'm 40, but that isn't going to happen now. )

Later!

With love from Georgia
(people named after states must love those "with love from [place]" postcards.)

Stella is Stellar!!!

2006-06-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

Two parcels in one day!

The first was delivered to me at home and contained a telephone and a packet of rocket from my sister's garden (we only have a cordless phone and I quite often run the battery out, usually while talking to another sister). (and I love rocket; this packet was made into a salad last night with grated beetroot and carrot and crumbled feta).

The second parcel was delivered to me at work and contained a whole bar of chocolate (I certainly couldn't wait and neither could the chocolate - it had come all the way from Switzerland!) and there was a Jack Johnson CD, which I left at work yesterday but have brought home today. Am planning to put it on now and read my book (On Beauty by Zadie Smith).

Thank you Stella! Look out for some kiwi trash mags coming your way (hopefully featuring Zinzan Brooks, one of our "celebrities" I know you've heard of!).

Time flies like an arrow

2006-06-14T02:25:00.000-07:00

And fruit flies like bananas.

One thing that being single gave me was lots of time. I spent a lot of time at work, but I didn’t mind cos it didn’t really matter what time I got home, what time I ate. But now I feel pressured. I can’t get enough time at work to do what I need to do. George works 9-5. Getting a ride with him makes my day at work too short, but now that we’ve got a mortgage we can no longer justify paying his petrol and parking as well as my bus fares. So I mostly get a ride with him and 2 or 3 times a week I take a bus one way.

Today I got to work at 9.20am. I complained as we got to his carpark that I now had 20 minutes more than usual to make up and that I might have to get the bus home. “I’ll let you know what I’m doing”, I said as I headed off.

At the end of the day I had some work I could easily do at home, so I emailed him to say I’d see him at his car. I also texted as I left my building, but when I got to his carpark at 5.10 he was gone. He had a) thought I’d said I was getting the bus, b) thought my “I’ll let you know what I’m doing” was in regard to whether I was buying fish for dinner, and c) left his cellphone at home. And not checked his email or checked in with me before leaving.

And then when he got home he wondered if there was any wine left for him. Ha! I told him I was the one who was stressed and therefore needed it more. And now we’ve played space invaders and Chinese checkers and I’m sure it’s better for my stress levels to continue in this vein and blog rather than do the work I brought home.

Because I miss having time to blog. I love my internet connections – where would I be without my man I met on the internet or my blogbuddies? (I'm with petite anglaise - thank god for the internet). And if you read this now-world-famous-blogger you’ll know I internet-stalked her the other night. George made sure I had my cellphone and Martha, it turns out, had a gun and knives, so everyone was safe. You can’t meet actual strangers off the internet here though, it’s too small and we all turn out to have connections to each other (even George and I did, we’d collaborated over the phone on a piece in a book).

I don’t have time to read like I used to either, cos I read on the bus but not in the car. Or exercise. There was a time a few years back when I exercised at least one and often two hours a day. I gave up my gym membership when I thought I was pregnant (sometimes I wonder if I really was) and now I don’t know when I’d find the time to go. Can’t afford to join up now – and anyway, still hoping to get pregnant again. I did take up running a month or so ago but I only managed two runs. It’s probably just a matter of getting settled again, after all we’ve only been in this house a couple of weeks. And I realised a little while ago that I am a (defacto) wife and (defacto) mother with a full on job and not too shabby social life so of course time is tight.

However, spending more time at home means the house is usually tidy, the dishes and washing done, clothes put away, that kind of thing. And we sit down to breakfast and I make my lunch, all good for the budget. And I’m usually better put-together when I leave the house than I used to be – I mean, I now have time to do my hair and sometimes even wear makeup!

Wishful Thinking

2006-06-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

“It didn’t work!” George junior looked so ripped off.

“What didn’t work?” I asked.

“My wish!” He was holding up a 5 cent coin that seemed to be dripping.

“What was your wish?”

“I wished for another fish”, he said, “but it didn’t come.”

“Well”, I said, “you’re still holding your money. You have to leave your money in the pond for it to work.”

“How long will it take?” he asked.

I got stuck then. But he was already planning bigger things. He asked in the car when we were going back to the spooky place with the fishes (Nana’s resthome!) and I said we weren’t. Back home, I was in the bathroom and I heard him saying “I need seawater”. Trying to avert a trip to the beach (admittedly just over the road), I called back “salt and water”. That evening, I noticed a jar of water on the table with a 10 cent piece in it. And, presumably, plenty of salt. (He'd scored the 10 cent piece off Daddy, assuming it would have more powers than the 5c that hadn't worked).

The next morning, George junior came into our bedroom asking “how long before I get my shark?”

“You wished for a shark??” I asked. “Do you think a shark would fit in that jar?”

“Well I only asked for a little one.”

Spiderman

2006-06-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

house 008, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

It cracked me up when I walked into the house after hanging out the washing and spotted this. It's the tag off the new Spiderman PJs we bought George junior this morning, which he's cut out and strung up. The elastic from between his new Spiderman gumboots is strung from one roofhandle of the car across to the other, with a pair of sunglasses dangling from it.

This would be a longer entry, except he's got off his X-Box and has asked me to play pick up sticks with him.

Knock knock, he says.
Who's there?
Scooby.
Scooby who?
Scooby Dooby Doo!

our new lounge - after

2006-05-29T02:46:00.000-07:00

house 007, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

And this is the lounge in our new house after we moved in. We are rapt with the floors - what a difference sanding and polishing makes!

our new lounge - before

2006-05-29T02:43:00.000-07:00

house 003, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

This is the lounge in our new house on settlement day. The vendor hadn't quite moved out at this point, all the stuff you can see is hers. I am now sitting in the corner of the kitchen at the left of the photo, with the lounge to my right.

Settlement Day

2006-05-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

table 008, originally uploaded by editter_photos.

Oh dear God, what have I done?

The Mighty W

2006-05-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

Wassup? I have to write 10 things starting with a certain letter. Which one? The Mighty W. Why? I was given it and told "don't use it wisely, make it your bitch". By Whom? The delightful Wanda.

Number won: Witch
Our bother-in-law used to call flying kiwi and me "The Witches". He thought he was being insulting.

Number two: Wanganui
Where my ancestors settled when they arrived here 4 generations ago. I had a boyfriend from there. He told me it meant big Whanger. It actually means big bay.

Number thwee: Lake Whackety-Poo
As an American said to a kiwi friend of mine:

Oh, you New Zealanders have such cute placenames, like that Lake Whackety-Poo!

The photo is of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown. And kiwi friend.

Number fouwa: The Wizard of Id
Bandit to Wizard and Blanche in their carriage: "Your money or your wife!"

Wizard throws Blanche out the window.

Bandit: "Come back here you willy-wivered wouse!"

Number Fiwiv: Woman's Day
George junior announced yesterday "I know what day it is today! Woman's Day!" Is it true that the Women's Weekly actually comes out monthly but they don't dare call it the Women's Monthly?

Number Siwix: The Wombles
Remember you're a Womble, remember you're a Womble
Uncle Bulgaria, he could remember the days when he wasn't behind The Times
Wellington was my favourite Womble. I had him and Bungo on my wall. I think. Or did I have Uncle Bulgaria?

Number Sewen: Woestijn
Random Dutch word that I had to look up after having heard it several times and having no clue what it meant. It means desert (as in the Calamari desert, not camel and arab pie dessert (what we called caramel apple pie)).

Number Eighwt: Wandom Wanished Bwoggers
So many good blogs that I started out reading and that no longer exist had titles starting with W.
Whateva Sista (reinvented as The Lovely Jonathan)
What Title Hasn't Been Chosen Yet? (exists sporadically)
Watchamacallits (risen again as Forever Frally)
Wherever You Are
Anxious, who started out as Witho

Thank God there's still Wanda.
OK, I'm bored now. And cold. I asked George junior for a word starting with W. He gave me waka. So I'll leave you with this pic of one:

The year that was

2006-05-04T00:13:00.000-07:00

I used that May the 4th joke a year ago in my first ever message to George. Yep, it's been a year since I settled down. Before that, life was full of drama and excitement - trekking Machu Picchu, Easter Island, rambles in Hanoi, meeting the guerilla in Colombia, escaping the tsunami in Thailand, for example. But in the last year - well, let's take a look, shall we?

May 2005:

June:

met George junior

July:

moved in with George and George junior (my sister tells me The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants has two donkeys called George and George junior, most disconcerting)

August:

thought things were going rather well, actually - as evidenced by the memes and silly Latin translations I did

September:

George junior's mother accused me of child abuse

October:

a tangle of affadavits, counselling, social workers, child psychologists and lawyers

November:

I was vindicated by social worker and child psychologist reports
narrowly avoided having to go to court

December:

January 2006:

had an uneventful holiday - OMG!
got pregnant!

February:

slept a lot
George junior's mother moved to Wellington
we trial weekabout - George junior has a week with her, then a week with us
George junior is much more settled - sleeps through the night, yay!

March:

miscarried

April:

Nana died (my last grandparent)
we bought a house!

May:

packing (currently)
moving (soon!)
trying to conceive (as often as possible, ahem)

I hope my recent lack of bloggage is explained by the house and funeral thing as well as by the amount of time it took me to do this post!

As George says, life hasn't been boring since we got together...

What's the date?

2006-05-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Me: What's the date today?

You: May the 4th.

Me: May the 4th be with you too.

Rambles in Colombia

2006-04-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

When I'm in a new place, I love to just wander a bit and see where my rambles take me. In a place like Colombia, you have to be careful. So as I took off up a little path winding up the hill behind Juan's finca (country house), I was actually thinking to myself "perhaps I should've told someone I was going to wander up here. Imagine if I met the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucianorias de Colombia - guerilla) along this path!" That thought made me forget the wildflowers and head back down to the BBQ, the beer, the frisbee, the backgammon, the lazy Sunday afternoon.

I was playing backgammon with my sister when they came around the corner. They were grubby, with bad teeth and gumboots. There were 3 of them. One went to talk to Juan. One sat on the edge of the patio looking out and the last sat with us and asked what we were playing. Flying kiwi explained "well I'm white and you're black, right?" Oops - he laughed anyway, seemed quite jovial, laughed at my Spanish. Laughed at the Welsh guy's ridiculous name.

They were there maybe 10, 15 minutes. They headed off up the path I'd just been wandering half an hour earlier. The atmosphere changed, all pretense of lightheartedness gone.

Welsh guy turned to Juan and asked, simply, "FARC?". Juan nodded, and I saw how shaken he was. Juan's girlfriend burst into tears. She'd been terrified to go to the bathroom in case they followed her. Flying kiwi said she'd suspected, and realised I had no idea, and thought it better I didn't suspect.

Welsh guy couldn't believe my ignorance - "didn't you see their guns?"

Um - no. Apparently the one sitting at the edge of the patio had had two in his waistband, clearly visible through his black string singlet. Colt double Eagle 45 ACPs, if my memory of what Welsh guy/NRA member told me serves me correctly.

I was only in Colombia 10 days and I encountered the FARC! Flying kiwi was there 2 years and she only encountered them once, too.

And seeing as I had thought they were local farmers, it wasn't even scary.

Ignorance is... I don't know.

Jesus saves, why can't you?

2006-04-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

List ten things you want to say to people you know but you never will, for whatever reason. Don't say who they are. Use each person only once:

1. You are a nightmare to work with. Please leave, so we don't have to.

p.s. did it really not occur to you that it might be insensitive to ask me to work on a book about babies 10 days after my miscarriage?

2. I am not as bossy as you make me out to be.

3. But Pak'n'Save really is cheaper. Wouldn't you rather have the extra cash?

4. Jesus saves. Why can't you?

5. You are a mother. Please start putting your son's needs ahead of yours.

6. Your life is more of a soap opera than Shortland Street. How about you start directing it instead of just waiting for the drama to unfold?

7. Come back to New Zealand. You've been gone far too long!

8. You named your baby WHAT?

9. I don't find your stories about your animals remotely interesting.

10. Cabbage is a word.

Actually, I think the reason this has sat unfinished in my drafts for so long (since I stole it from Fi) is that I don't have a problem saying what I want to people. I had a boss who used to tell people they needn't worry about not knowing what I thought about something!

Grrrrr...

2006-04-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

“OK – we’ll be over soon.”

As George ended the call, George Junior asked me where we were going.

“You’re going to Mummy’s. With Daddy.”

“I don’t wanna go”, he said, screwing his face up.

“You’re going.” I said. “It’s not for long.”

Doesn’t help that George doesn’t want to go either. But they need to sort access out. As those of you who know about what she’s put us through already, it continues to be a jagged, twisted path. And George keeps conceding things he shouldn’t, needn’t. I mean, this year will be the third Christmas in a row she’s had George Junior, and yet George was willing to sign up to them having him alternate years from now on. Among other things.

Anyway, the deal is they’re trying shared access – weekabout. It’s working fine, so far. I think George junior finds the back and forth tiring, but then I think most kids in this situation do. He is so much happier and more settled in himself this year. Because his mother has calmed down and is no longer angry all the time. George commented that when they sat down early this year in the house she’s rented nearby that it would’ve been the first time George Junior had seen them sitting down together and that it would’ve made him happy. He just went from playing up when going to bed and getting up constantly to going to bed by himself, settling quickly and never getting up, almost instantly. I’m so impressed with him. He’s had to mature a lot, as George commented. He doesn’t throw tantrums like he used to – we’ve only had a couple this year, compared to weekly last year. And he gets over them more quickly too. So, I’m not worried about him like I used to be. He’s tough and he’s cool. And he loves it when I tell him so. And he lets me eat his chocolate.

But he’s scared that liking me will earn him his mother’s wrath.

That Kevin book has stayed with me – I just can’t imagine not loving a child, any child. And a kid like George Junior, who has called me a little piggy, kicked out at me, told me “you’re not my mummy!”, basically rebelled against me in many ways, is still totally loveable. And resists less and less the more time goes on and he just likes me, despite his mother’s belief that I’m awful. I’ve got friends quite a lot like her, in terms of her place in the community, and in other situations we’re very likely to have been quick friends.

But she’s against me and she’s harming her son and that makes me so angry. She has a lot of power over the happiness of our little whanau (family). I hope she sees the difference in her son and stops using her power in such a destructive way.

movie review by George Junior

2006-04-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

This review of Open Water consists of comments made throughout the movie by George Junior (aged 6).

How long are they gonna kissy for?

Are we gonna see her boobies again?

Can that eel kill you?

What are those fishes called?

When are the sharks gonna come and get them?

That wasn't EVEN scary!

where have all the flowers gone?

2006-03-29T23:40:00.000-08:00

Laurie wrote a lovely post (she always writes lovely posts) about SSB - Secret Single Behaviour. Have a read, then come back and tell me what your secret single behaviour is. I'm indulging in mine - it combines blogging and alcohol with occasional bursts of domesticity. And usually music, but not tonight.

I had to do the dishes cos George can't leave them undone overnight and he's coming back tonight. Suits me - he doesn't usually leave them long enough for me to get at them. He now calls it a compulsion. When I lived on my own I'd leave dishes for 2 or 3 nights and then do a big mish. Now I've been pretty much relieved of my least favourite household chore. We're so well suited. I love to cook, he's not a confident cook. He makes great poached eggs, so he's on breakfast duty, I'm on dinner duty, he's on dishes duty. And I usually make the bed. Domestic bliss ensues.

The alcohol is one of those mini-bottles of Prenzel's butterscotch schnapps. I'd forgotten about them (having not been near the liquor cabinet in months) and was headed for the gin. I'm going to stop drinking again soon. I'm just abusing this little window of malnutricious opportunity. I've been eating crap. I found a great website today (went to find my printout, came back with half a packet of chippies I found in the cupboard. Chicken, yuck). OK, so this website has a plan for getting pregnant after miscarriage. It's call the Sperm Meets Egg Plan. It made me laugh, I don't think it was supposed to. But it says twice as many women following the plan will get pregnant as the normal population. Sounds worth a go, although she can't really claim "will get" based on bulletin-board statistics of the number of women who got pregnant after trying it.

I need to go and make the bed. And put a few clothes away. Half an hour till George gets home. I might even put the heater on, thought about it last night but it's only 2 weeks since summer was here. I knew daylight saving was ending, but it wasn't supposed to have jumped so abruptly into deep Autumn. The sunshine went, the flowers died (I knew George was throwing one lot out, but I see another one's gone), and back at the coal mine is grim, dirty work.

Don't forget to come back with your secret single behaviour!

I cry too much, or not enough, depending

2006-03-28T23:07:00.000-08:00

I was going to put Dido on. I’ve been in a Dido kind of mood lately. Then I thought “hang on – what did I listen to during my last sad time?” Kasey Chambers. It was when Mr Virgo left me. So I’m listening to it again – it’s one of those CDs I know all the words to. Even when we were still going out my cousin announced during Am I not pretty enough? “This is YOUR song!”

Am I not pretty enough?

Is my heart too broken?

Do I cry too much?

Am I too outspoken?

Ah yes. This was a month after I’d met him and I was terribly excited about him. He was unbelievable. I should never have believed what seemed so incredible. I was so upset. Not that I’d lost him, but that I’d been so taken in. I felt betrayed, stupid, hurt, sad and upset all at once. And I really felt it was all his fault for having given me such expectations. Oh I’ll write a nice post about how wonderful he was one day. Hehe, comma omitted. He was nice for many, many days. And then one day he wasn’t and hasn’t been ever since.

I was so upset. As you can see, I’m still a bit upset about it all. More so than I am about the miscarriage and I feel guilty about it. He was only a man, only in my life for a short time, as it turned out and this – this! – was a baby. A baby I only knew about for 6 weeks, but whose life I had laid out alongside my own future, a future I’d already rearranged in my head in every single aspect. I feel a bit like Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives who said “of course I’m sad. It’s a sad time!” And I was sad. Relatively quickly and privately. And I definitely have my moments. Gabrielle releasing that balloon representing her grief made me cry. But I find the grief utterly bearable. I don’t know why, when some women are consumed with grief after a miscarriage. But I think it’s the following things in me:

Pragmatism – I’ve often been told I’m pragmatic, philosophical. Totally related to my experiences growing up in a church-going family, been culture-shocked into a different religion (only went from NZ Presbyterian to Belgian Catholic – but the differences were huge, philosophically)

Previous Surgery – I’ve had lots of major surgery and am not scared of hospital. I guess I feel at home there because I have made my home there 3 times in the last 6 years. Once was only overnight, but once was 2 weeks.

Awareness – I knew my age and medical history were against me, I always said getting pregnant was just the beginning. And I knew 1 in 4 pregnancies does not end in a live birth. When you know that you can’t pretend it’s never going to happen to you. I was prepared for it. To not be is to risk your health. And if you want a baby (which we know you do, cos you’re pregnant) then you can’t afford to risk your health.

Optimism - I will still have a great life even if I don’t have children. I have lots of children in my life anyway, and children belong to everybody. I know the children in my life feel like they belong to me in a small way. Every time someone comments that their child adores me, I say “it’s mutual!” Take words of wisdom that have been passed down through the ages to heart. These are the words that have endured above all others, so they must have come down through the survivors. Optimists are more likely to have children and live longer. I want both those things (and they’re in my genes). I am lucky. I have always been lucky. Maybe it is this that convinces me I will have a child. That, and that I know I can get pregnant. And I know that I have an 81% percent chance of having a successful next pregnancy.

So you see, it’s not that bad. Anyway, having been, in the last 3 years, through a traumatic breakup, 2 x surgery (myomectomy and abdominal hernia repair), moving house 4 times (once due to a psychotic flatmate – nasty situation for 3 weeks, that’s how long I lasted – I broke the whole flat up by leaving too), restructure at work, being caught in the tsunami, Internet dating and being accused of child abuse… well a miscarriage did seem like a loss I could bear. (OK, now I’m thinking about Gladly, the cross-eyed bear).

And now I need to read about Kevin. I’ve only got about ½ hour’s reading left. It’s pretty damned unputdownable. I know some of you found that too.

Can you tell I’m at home on my own? George is in the South Island for work. He’s seeing his parents tonight. I’m sad he hasn’t got the lovely news we’d hoped to tell them soon.

But it’s OK.